The circuit that keeps tripping
This is the call we get most, and it's rarely a mystery once you know where to look.
The usual culprit is the geyser. As the element ages it starts leaking a small amount of current, which is enough to trip the switch. The giveaway is the timing: it goes early in the morning, right when the geyser timer kicks in.
After that, close to the coast, it's moisture in outdoor light fittings, pool pump boxes and irrigation controllers. Salt air gets into everything eventually. Then older wiring that has become brittle, a faulty appliance, or a pool or borehole pump on its way out.
Finding it is a method rather than guesswork. We isolate the circuit, then test properly to catch the intermittent faults that switching things on and off will never reveal. Most of the time we know what it is within the hour.
If your house still has screw-in fuses, or no earth leakage protection at all, it's running on an arrangement that was normal decades ago and isn't considered safe now.
A modern board protects each circuit properly, cuts the power fast if something leaks to earth, and is labelled so you know what's what. Replacing one is a day's work, and the cost comes down to how many circuits you have.
Homes wired forty-odd years ago and never touched since almost always need some rewiring. Older suburbs and small-town centres are where we see it most. What we find is cloth and rubber insulated cable gone hard and brittle.
It doesn't all have to happen at once. We usually start with a report on what you have, then do the urgent circuits, then the rest as it suits you. A full house rewire takes a week or two, done room by room so the house stays livable throughout.
A certificate stays valid for as long as the installation is unchanged. Two situations actually require one: when you sell a property, the certificate may not be older than two years, and any time the installation is altered, whether that's solar, a generator, a car charger or a new circuit, a further certificate is needed for that work.
If you aren't sure where you stand, an inspection is quick and inexpensive, and it's far better to find out before a sale than during one.
Surge damage has become one of the fastest-growing insurance claims in the country. Claims have risen sharply in recent years, and insurers have responded by adding excesses that apply specifically to surge damage.
Insurers don't usually insist on a particular product, but they do tend to want proof that protection was properly installed. That's the part a plug-in strip from a hardware shop can't give you and a proper installation can. It's inexpensive relative to what one lightning strike can do to a house full of electronics.
More South Africans are charging at home every year, and it isn't only fully electric cars. Plug-in hybrids now outsell battery-electric cars locally by a wide margin, and they need charging just the same.
A home charger isn't a plug point. It needs its own circuit from the board, the right protective equipment, and an enclosure that will survive being outdoors, which near the coast matters more than it does inland.
The main thing that changes the cost is speed. Faster charging needs a three-phase supply, which not every home has, so that's the first thing we check. If you have solar, or are thinking about it, it's well worth planning the two together.
Your landlord has to hold a certificate for the building as it was. But the moment you add a circuit for kitchen equipment, put in air conditioning, wire up signage or refit the space, that work becomes yours to certify unless your lease says otherwise.
Most business owners don't know this until it comes up at a lease renewal or an insurance claim. We can inspect what you inherited, tell you where you actually stand, and certify what you have had done.
Swapping old halogen downlights for modern equivalents cuts the electricity those lights use dramatically. In a shop running lights all day, it's one of the quickest things you can do that pays for itself.
The saving people forget is the labour. Modern fittings last many times longer, so if your lights are high up and need scaffolding or a lift to reach, not replacing them for years is often worth more than the electricity.
Larger equipment needs a three-phase supply, and if your premises doesn't have one, that's a council upgrade rather than a wiring job. It carries a substantial council charge and a waiting period, so it belongs in the budget from the start rather than as a surprise later.
You may be paying for power you never use
Larger accounts are billed on the total electrical load a site draws, not just the useful part of it. Motors, older equipment and certain kinds of machinery cause a site to draw more than it actually uses, and you pay for the difference every month.
Correcting it is well-established work, the equipment pays for itself quickly, and on an affected site it takes a meaningful slice off the monthly bill. A survey tells you quickly whether your site is affected. Plenty aren't, and that's a fine answer too.
We work standard business hours, with on-call cover for urgent faults after hours. A real breakdown gets a real response, not a voicemail.
Generator installations have to be properly connected and certified, and the switching between grid and generator is where the safety risk sits, so it isn't a job for a general handyman. Cost depends on the capacity you need and whether you want the changeover to happen automatically.
Servicing matters more than people expect, including running the unit under real load rather than just starting it up.
If you're a landlord or a body corporate reselling electricity to tenants through sub-meters, the rules are stricter than most people expect. You may charge what the tenant would have paid the municipality, and you may not add a margin or recover your billing and administration costs from them.
Sub-metering gets sold to landlords as a way to make money. Legally it's a way to allocate cost fairly. Getting the metering and the paperwork right is what keeps you out of a dispute.