Why does a Licensed Electrical Inspector need to check my new switchboard?

Most electrical work in a house sits after the main switch, where circuit breakers and safety switches protect it and it can be switched off to work on. The consumer mains, meter box and main switchboard are different. In a home, Energy Safe Victoria says prescribed work generally means work on wiring and equipment that can't be switched off, usually the wires up to the switchboard.

A mistake there sits ahead of the protection the rest of the house relies on. So Victoria's rules add an inspection by a Licensed Electrical Inspector, who is separate from the electrician who did the work.

Prescribed work can't be switched on, or left on, until it has been inspected. Energy Safe Victoria says the electrician has eight business days after finishing to have the work inspected, but a house can't sit without power that long, so on a switchboard job the inspection is built into the day's plan. We arrange it as part of the job and give you the expected window when we book.

There is a narrow exception. Repairing or replacing a single component part of prescribed work can fall outside the inspection requirement, and your electrician should tell you which applies before starting.

You get a prescribed Certificate of Electrical Safety for the work. Under the Electricity Safety Act, it is due within 4 business days after the inspector's certificate of inspection is given, so the inspection comes first and the certificate follows. Keep it with your house records; our guide to certificates explains what to check on it.