Switchboard Upgrade in Newtown

What we see in Newtown

Newtown's one of those suburbs where you pull up to a job and you already know what you're in for before you even open the van. The older homes along Neil Street and around Newtown Park are beautiful — proper character Queenslanders sitting up on their stumps — but underneath that charm there's often wiring that's been there since before your grandparents were born. VIR cable, the old rubber-insulated stuff, goes brittle over time. You find it crumbling in your hands under the floor and it's not something you can patch up and walk away from.

The sub-floor access on these raised homes is actually one of the easier parts of the job. You can get under there and trace what's going on, which beats fishing cables through a slab any day. What catches a lot of homeowners off guard is where the switchboard ends up — tucked inside a bedroom cupboard or a hallway, which just doesn't meet current requirements.

The newer townhouses and duplexes scattered through Newtown are a completely different story. They're generally fine. It's the pre-war stuff that keeps us busy, and honestly, it's satisfying work once it's done properly.