Canberra homes built before 2010. When was your switchboard last checked?
Find out whether your home’s wiring is safe, outdated, or quietly developing a problem, in writing, from a licensed electrician.
No catch. No sales pitch. I come out, run the DBT Safety Assessment on your switchboard, your safety switches, your visible wiring, and your smoke alarms, and give you a written plain-language report of exactly what I found. $99, credited against any work booked on the day. Here’s why that structure produces a more honest result than a free visit.
Electrical Safety Assessment
Three honest questions
Could you answer any of these with confidence?
Has your switchboard ever tripped for no clear reason?
Ever noticed a light flicker, and just left it?
Do you actually know whether your safety switches are protecting every circuit in your home?
Most Canberra homeowners can’t. Not because they’re careless. Because nobody ever told them to check.
A true story · Tuggeranong
Why this assessment exists.
- 01
The call
A few years ago I got a call from a homeowner in Tuggeranong. Solid brick house, built in 1989. Well maintained. Nothing obviously wrong. I ran my standard check.
- 02
What I found
No safety switches on the lighting circuits. Ceramic fuses still sitting in the board alongside the newer breakers someone had added later. One connection showing early signs of heat stress at the switchboard terminal. Nothing had failed. Not yet.
- 03
What he said
I bought this house eight years ago and nobody ever said anything about any of this.
— The homeowner - 04
Why I started this
He was right. The things that eventually cause electrical fires don’t usually announce themselves. They build quietly, over years, until one day they don’t. I started offering the Switchboard Electrical Safety Assessment because I kept seeing the same thing: Canberra homeowners living in houses where nobody had ever looked, and where looking would have changed things.
It’s not your fault you don’t know what’s behind your switchboard door. You inherited whatever the previous owners left.
The mechanism
The DBT Switchboard Electrical Safety Assessment
A systematic assessment of the four things that determine whether an older Canberra home’s electrical is safe, outdated, or developing into a problem: your switchboard, your safety switches, your visible wiring, and your smoke alarms.
Before
You’re flying blind on one of the most important safety systems in your home.
After
You know. In writing. In language that doesn’t require an electrical licence to understand.
What it uncovers
What most Canberra homeowners don’t know to look for.
Here’s a fraction of what the DBT Safety Assessment finds, and what most Canberra homeowners don’t know to look for:
- The one circuit in most Canberra homes that almost never has a safety switch protecting it, and why it’s the circuit that matters most in the 11 seconds after something actually goes wrong.
- Why a switchboard that’s been working fine for 20 years can still represent a fire risk, and the 3-second visual check that sorts them into two very different categories.
- The smoke alarm position that passes a basic visual check but fails in the specific way that most Canberra house fires actually spread, and why it turns up more often than it should.
- What the colour of your switchboard wiring tells me about when your home’s electrical was last touched, and why certain colours make me look at everything else twice.
- The specific sign of heat stress at a switchboard terminal that most homeowners have walked past for years without knowing what they were looking at.
- Why safety switches that were fitted to your property 10 or 15 years ago might not be protecting every circuit in your home, and the 30-second test I run that shows exactly where the gap is.
- The single most common finding in Canberra homes built between 1978 and 1995, and why the original owners didn’t know it was going to become a problem either.
- Why ‘it’s been working fine for years’ is the sentence I hear most often in the 60 seconds before I find something worth looking at.
- The question I ask at every property that tells me more about the electrical in two seconds than the first ten minutes of a visual check.
- What your fuse box type means for the buyers of your home, and why it’s increasingly appearing on the list of things buyers’ solicitors ask about.
- The reason the same three electrical issues show up repeatedly in Canberra homes from the 1980s, and why none of the original homeowners were told about them at the time.
What clients say
Real stories from Canberra homeowners.
House is from the 80s and I had no idea what was in the box on the wall. Dan walked me through it without making me feel like an idiot. Found a couple of things I didn’t know about. Worth it for the peace of mind.
Who’s coming out
Dan Turner,
Switchboard Specialist.
I’m a licensed Canberra electrician with 17 years in the trade and a background in commercial construction, project managing builds as a Site Supervisor and Forman. Switchboards are where I’ve spent most of that time. When I’m standing in front of one, I know exactly what I’m looking at, and I know how to explain what I find in language you don’t need an electrical licence to follow.
The assessment
The DBT Switchboard Electrical Safety Assessment is $99.
Not a callout fee. Not a deposit on future work. I come out, run the DBT Safety Assessment, and give you a written plain-language report of what I found. If you book any work on the same day, the $99 comes off the job. If you walk away with just the report, you’ve paid $99 for a professional assessment and a written record of your home’s electrical condition.
The written report is yours to keep regardless, useful if you’re planning renovations, thinking about selling, or simply want to know what you own.
Guarantee
No argument. No fine print.
If you don’t walk away knowing more about your home’s electrical than before I arrived, tell me. I’ll make it right. If the assessment didn’t deliver what it promised, I’ll refund it. No argument.
The price
$99
Credited against any work booked on the day.
I run a limited number of assessments each month alongside my paid work. There isn’t an unlimited number of slots, and when the schedule fills, it fills.
Book your DBT Safety Assessment now.
You’ll know exactly where your home stands within 48 hours of your visit.
Available for Canberra homes 15 years or older.
PS
Six months from now, one of two things will be true.
If you’ve read this far, you’re the kind of homeowner who actually takes their property seriously. You’re not the one who waits until something breaks.
Six months from now, one of two things will be true. You’ll have had this done and stopped wondering. Or you’ll be in exactly the same position, still not quite sure, still meaning to get around to it, still carrying that background awareness every time the power does something odd.
The people who don’t book this aren’t bad homeowners. They just keep not getting around to it. And then one day they wish they had.
It’s $99. Book it.
You’ll know exactly where your home stands within 48 hours of your visit.