A suburb of houses and nothing but: 99.5 per cent of homes here are separate houses, built in one postwar generation against the national park. Their wiring is ageing as a class, and that is our specialty.
Pricing agreed before we start. We usually reply the same day.
East Killara is what happened when the postwar decades met the last bush on the Killara side of the ridge. East of the arterial, the crescents and avenues were carved out toward the national park and built up substantially in one generation, the fifties through the seventies, family houses on generous green blocks, a small run of shops on Koola Avenue, and Killara High to anchor it. The era's confidence is still visible a street over the boundary, where Harry Seidler built his own famous house on the same bush edge in 1966. In 1994 the suburb finally got its own name on the map.
The census draws the sharpest portrait on this whole site: 99.5 per cent of homes are separate houses, and the number of apartments is zero. Nearly half the houses are owned outright, households average 3.2 people, and Garigal National Park runs the entire eastern boundary, which means the last streets simply end at the bush.
For our trade, a suburb built in one go has one defining consequence: its houses age together. The boards installed in that first optimistic decade have watched sixty years of arrivals, the extension, the pool, the air conditioning, the office, and now the induction kitchen and the car, and a great many of them have never been touched. The suburb's wiring is retiring as a class, and the sensible response is the one this page is about.
Nearly every house here has lived some version of this story. The dates shift a little; the shape of it does not.
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What it means: nothing in this story was a mistake. Every addition was normal family life, and each one found room on the original board because electricians of every era made things fit. But fitting is not the same as designed for, and the last frame is where many East Killara houses now live: modern loads, sixty-year-old protection, and a board with no spare ways left. The fix is not dramatic, it is a planned day: a modern board sized for what the house actually carries, a safety switch on every circuit, and room for whatever arrives next.
Sixty years of good ideas, each with an electrical signature we recognise on sight.
The original installation
Honest sixties work: lights, stove, hot water, a handful of power circuits, and a board of rewirable fuses that protected cable but never people. Where the cable tests soundly it can stay; the board cannot.
The upgrade is one planned day, and it is the foundation for everything below.
The extension and the pool
The growing-family decades added rooms and water, usually by squeezing new circuits onto the old board. Pools from that era often carry protection that predates today's non-negotiable rules.
We separate, protect and certify the lot, and the pool gets brought up to modern standards properly.
The comfort layer
Ducted air conditioning, the dishwasher, the home office: serious loads that arrived quietly through the nineties and two-thousands, one sensible decision at a time, all reporting to a board sized for 1965.
Dedicated circuits and honest load arithmetic put the comfort on solid footing.
The electric decade
Induction in the kitchen, a charger in the garage, everything streaming. This is the decade the old board finally cannot absorb, and the one that makes the upgrade urgent rather than eventual.
Board first, then the car and the kitchen become easy, certified additions.
A suburb whose houses all share a birthday deserves a straight story, so here is ours. Not every East Killara house needs a full rewire. Cable from the sixties that was installed well and never abused can still test perfectly soundly, and where it does, we say so and leave it in service. Selling wholesale rewires to houses that need boards is how this trade gets its reputation, and we want no part of it.
What almost every original house does need is the board brought into this century: safety switches on every circuit, capacity for what the house actually carries now, spare ways for what is coming, and surge protection standing in front of the electronics while the lid is off. That is a planned day at the house, not an upheaval, and it removes the single largest risk these houses carry.
Beyond that, the work follows the renovations: circuits and rewiring done while kitchen or bathroom walls are open, extensions untangled at the board, pools brought up to the modern rules, and the car given its own honest circuit. Everything is certified: we lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work within 7 days of testing, through the BCNSW eCert portal since 1 July 2026.
Garigal National Park runs the entire eastern edge of the suburb, and the closer a street sits to it, the more the bush sets the conditions. Storms cost more here than on the ridge: longer network runs under heavier canopy mean the bush-side streets notice weather the highway side shrugs off. When the whole street goes dark that is Ausgrid's job; when it is only your place, the fault is almost always on your side of the connection point, and that is exactly what we fix. Surge protection at the board is the cheap insurance this geography argues for.
The gardens do the rest. Blocks here are generous, green and shaded, so outdoor wiring earns the full treatment: sealed fittings that survive leaf litter and damp, cable sized for the long runs to back corners and pool sheds, and outdoor circuits on their own protection so a wet garden light trips itself and nothing else. Between the bush edge and the deep gardens, East Killara's outside wiring works harder than its quiet streets suggest.
And the daily life of the suburb runs through one street: the Koola Avenue shops, the school beside them, the buses along Birdwood. We keep the strip's handful of businesses trading with the same before-hours courtesy we give shopfronts everywhere, and the school run tells us exactly when not to schedule a delivery of switchboards.
Not a generic service list. This is what actually comes in from this postcode.
The suburb's defining job: original boards replaced in a planned day, safety switches on every circuit, sized for the house's real loads with room to grow.
Switchboard upgradesWhat is actually in the walls, tested and reported plainly, then brought forward era by era around renovations, never sold wholesale where it is not needed.
Electrical rewiringOlder pool electrics lifted to the modern rules: zones, bonding, safety switches on every circuit, and pump gear on properly sized cable.
Pool electricianSealed fittings for shaded gardens, long runs sized for the distance, and outdoor circuits separated so the garden cannot darken the house.
Outdoor lightingBush-edge streets under heavy canopy are the textbook case for a switchboard device standing in front of everything you own.
Surge protectionHard-wired points through double brick to the office and the far rooms, with the router where the cable enters rather than where 2005 left it.
Data cablingThe crescents and avenues east of the arterial, out to where the streets end at the park.
Honestly, often not, and we will tell you either way. Well-installed cable from that era can still test soundly, and where it does, the urgent money goes to the two things that have genuinely aged out: the switchboard, which usually predates safety switches, and capacity, because the house now carries loads its circuits were never planned for. We test what is actually in the walls, report plainly, and stage any rewiring around renovations so walls open once. What we never do is sell a whole-house rewire to a house that only needed a board.
Not usually a danger, often a design mess. Extensions of that era were typically fed by adding circuits to the original board, or worse, extending existing ones, so the house ends up with two generations of wiring negotiating over four fuses. The fix is at the board: a modern one with a way for each real circuit, safety switches on everything, and the extension's wiring tested and separated properly. It is a day of work that untangles forty years.
Yes, once the board is brought up to the job. A charger is one of the biggest loads a house can gain, and the sequence matters: we check what the supply and board can actually carry, upgrade the board where it is still fuse-era, then run the charger on its own protected circuit to the garage or carport. Done in that order it is clean, certified and boring, which is what car charging should be.
The bush side wears the weather. Streets against the national park sit at the end of the local network's runs, under more tree, so big blows cost more here than on the ridge. If the whole street is dark, that is Ausgrid's restoration. If it is only your place, the fault is probably your side of the connection point, and that is us. Surge protection at the board is cheap insurance for a suburb with this much canopy.
Pool gear from decades past often grew organically: a pump circuit here, a chlorinator there, sometimes on protection that would not pass a modern inspection. The rules around water are strict now, zones, bonding, safety switches on every circuit, and bringing an older pool's electrics up to them is a well-defined, well-priced job. We do it end to end and certify it; our pool electrician page has the detail.
Induction changes the arithmetic, so the plan starts at the board: a dedicated circuit for the cooktop, another for the oven, and the appliance circuits a modern kitchen actually uses rather than the two power points 1965 thought sufficient. We wire it while the walls are open, add the lighting the room deserves, and make sure the board has room for the rest of the house's future while it is being touched anyway.
Absolutely. A suburb with no through-traffic suits trades who plan their days, and we do: a dead power point, a flickering light, a safety switch that will not reset, all worth a call. We are based in Castlecrag, the upper North Shore is a normal part of our week, and small jobs are how most of our long East Killara relationships started.
Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
The upper North Shore is regular ground for us.
See the full list of locations we service. Not sure what decade your board is from? Send a photo and we will tell you in a minute.
Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. Sixty years of arrivals deserve one properly planned day at the board.
