Switchboard Upgrade in South Toowoomba

What we see in South Toowoomba

South Toowoomba's got a real mix of housing stock, and that means the electrical situation varies a lot street to street. You'll pull up to a tidy weatherboard cottage off Alderley Street and find wiring that hasn't been touched since the Eisenhower era. That's not always a problem on its own, but open the switchboard and you're often looking at asbestos-backed panels — common in anything built through the 1960s around here. Homeowners are usually surprised by that one.

The 1970s brick homes are their own thing entirely. That period coincided with a copper shortage, so a lot of builders switched to aluminium wiring. It's still out there in plenty of South Toowoomba homes and it needs careful handling. Aluminium behaves differently to copper, especially at connections, and it's something you've got to know is there before you start pulling anything apart.

What catches people off guard most is just how much the age of these homes compounds things. It's not one issue — it's layers. A fibro cottage near South Street might have old wiring, no safety switches, and an asbestos panel all at once. You work through it methodically.