The Conduction Company recommends a switchboard upgrade for porcelain fuses, no RCD protection, or a board that is full. On Auckland homes, a black asbestos backing panel makes an upgrade far more likely. What is inside the board, and the cable behind it, matters more than how old it is.
How do I know if I need a switchboard upgrade? Jordan Statham, director of The Conduction Company and a registered electrician and electrical inspector, keeps his rule of thumb short: "If it looks old, or you haven't done anything about it in a decade or more, it's likely time to get an upgrade." Below is what an electrician looks for in an old electrical panel, what you can spot yourself, and when the cable behind the board turns a board swap into a bigger job.
How do I know if my electrical panel needs to be upgraded?
The Conduction Company judges an electrical panel by its protective devices first. An experienced electrician can usually tell the state of a switchboard at a glance, from how the enclosure is built and what is protecting the circuits. This is the order The Conduction Company works down on an Auckland job, most urgent first.
Porcelain fuses. An upgrade is warranted straight away.
Plug-in circuit breakers, or the older black PDL breakers. Large first-generation breakers usually mean an upgrade is needed.
More modern plug-in circuit breakers. Genuinely 50/50. It depends on their age and on the cable behind them. You might need an upgrade, or the board may last a while longer.
Modern circuit breakers in a PVC enclosure. Typically fine to leave, though some have no RCD protection.
Modern circuit breakers with RCD protection. Usually absolutely fine.
RCBOs. The modern standard, common on boards fitted in the last five years. One device protects against both overload and electric shock.
Porcelain fuses
Porcelain fuses, also called ceramic fuses, are the clearest signal on that list. AS/NZS 3000, the wiring standard New Zealand electricians work to, states at clause 2.4.3 that "semi-enclosed rewireable fuses shall not be used", so they cannot go into new work. There is a human problem too, in the words of Jordan Statham at The Conduction Company: if someone replaces a 10 amp fuse wire with 32 amp wire, which is very easy to do if you do not know the size, high current can run through small cable. That is a real fire risk.
No RCD protection
A circuit breaker protects the wiring. It trips on overcurrent, from a short circuit or too much load, before the cable overheats. An RCD protects people: it trips when current leaks to earth, which is what happens when someone touches a live part. AS/NZS 3000 requires 30 mA RCD protection on home circuits supplying socket-outlets and lighting (clause 2.6.3.3.1). Where all the circuit protection on a board is replaced, clause 2.6.3.3.4 requires that RCD protection for every circuit the board supplies, so a switchboard upgrade from The Conduction Company brings RCDs with it.
Jordan Statham at The Conduction Company makes one point about RCDs every time. Small children are more likely than anyone to put something metal into a socket, so if there are little kids in the house, The Conduction Company strongly recommends RCDs in the board. "They do save lives," he says.
Every RCD has a test button on the front. Pressing it confirms the RCD works, but not how fast it trips, which is why an electrician's testing in New Zealand has to include the trip time. If you press it and nothing happens, that RCD is no longer protecting you, so call an electrician. The Conduction Company explains how and when to test an RCD at home in its guide to RCDs.
A black backing panel
A black backing panel behind the fuses is often asbestos, and to The Conduction Company it says the board is old. WorkSafe's approved code of practice on asbestos lists fuse boxes among the products that used asbestos until the mid-1980s. So a board like this was almost certainly installed before 1990, most likely between the 1940s and the mid-1980s, which makes it more than 35 years old. Two caveats: the board's age is not the house's age, since boards get replaced, and not every black panel is asbestos.
The asbestos in the black backing board is non-friable. The fibres are locked into a solid resin or bitumen, and while the board is intact it is considered low risk. Cutting, drilling, sanding or breaking it can release fibres, and old fuse holders can hold other asbestos parts that are friable. The Conduction Company explains this before any work starts, so nobody spends the week worrying. Where only the non-friable backing board is involved, The Conduction Company removes it under its own asbestos management procedure. Where friable parts are present, WorkSafe's guidance is that a licensed asbestos removalist must take the board out.
A black panel makes The Conduction Company far more likely to recommend an upgrade, and it looks closely at the cable behind the board, because if the board is original, the cable may be too.
Tripping, blown fuses, and anything you can smell or hear
Circuits that trip often are one of the most common signs The Conduction Company sees. A modern breaker is easy to reset, so people stop noticing how often they do it. On an old fuse board the same problem shows up as fuses that keep blowing, and if you are replacing fuses regularly, The Conduction Company says it is time for an upgrade. It also explains why a circuit breaker keeps tripping in a separate guide.
Loose terminations are the other common fault The Conduction Company finds. A screw not tightened enough when a breaker went in, or loosened by vibration over time, pushes high current through a high-resistance joint. It overheats, and The Conduction Company has seen it melt a breaker, which is why the team checks and tightens every termination whenever it is inside a board. Plenty of no-power call-outs turn out to be one blown porcelain fuse, too: a breaker has an obvious on and off position, and a fuse does not.
Anything you can smell or hear at the board is different. Do not wait on that one. Switchboard faults can go badly wrong, and Jordan Statham of The Conduction Company has written up the day he melted a switchboard as an apprentice.
No room for another circuit
If the board is in good condition, the usual reason The Conduction Company upgrades it is space. Once every position holds a protective device and you need another circuit, there are two options.
A small sub-board next to the main board. Perfectly fine, but it rarely looks good, especially where the board is on show.
A larger board with more spaces. It looks far better, and The Conduction Company usually oversizes by at least six spaces, so there is room for what comes next.
EV chargers usually do not force an upgrade, in The Conduction Company's experience. The good ones have dynamic load balancing, which watches what your home is drawing and adjusts the charger's current to keep you under the limit. Solar is more likely to, because its equipment for monitoring, protection and connecting to the internet needs physical space in the main board.
Can you upgrade an electrical panel without rewiring the house?
In most cases, yes: The Conduction Company replaces the switchboard on its own unless the cable behind it needs replacing too. That cable decides it, which is why The Conduction Company looks behind the board before it quotes.
This is how The Conduction Company reads the cable it finds, from its own field notes on New Zealand cable types.
VIR, cloth-covered rubber cable, often in steel conduit. The original New Zealand system, from the early 1900s. The insulation is past its working life and cracks when disturbed. Full replacement.
Cloth-covered cable with an earth wire, no conduit. From the 1930s. Full replacement.
TRS, tough rubber sheath. Homes built or rewired in the 1940s and 1950s. Known to degrade, and a fire and shock risk. Rewire the TRS circuits.
Early plastic (PVC) cable. Some from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s leaks a sticky green goo as it breaks down. Where the goo is widespread, a full rewire is the best fix. Where it is confined to a few fittings or one circuit, localised repairs can be enough.
TPS, tough plastic sheath. From the 1960s on, the modern cable. A board swap on its own is fine.
The board and the cable can be different ages. Black asbestos backing panels ran to the mid-1980s and TPS arrived in the 1960s, so an Auckland house from the 1970s can have an ancient-looking board over sound cable. That is why The Conduction Company checks the cable itself rather than going by the board, and it explains more about rewiring older homes in New Zealand in a separate guide.
The cheapest rewire quote can cost the most. The Conduction Company has been to Auckland houses that were supposedly rewired, where only the cable running up the wall from a new board had been replaced and everything beyond it was still the original cable. Those owners paid for a rewire twice.
How much does a switchboard upgrade cost in NZ?
The estimates below are for standard installation of a new switchboard. The Conduction Company confirms final pricing after a property assessment.
The Conduction Company prices an Auckland switchboard upgrade at $2,000 to $4,500 including GST. That is the switchboard work on its own, not the total of a quote that carries other work alongside it. The type of installation moves the price most, and The Conduction Company breaks it down, including the meter charge that is not ours, in what a switchboard upgrade costs in NZ.
If the budget is not there yet, put the board at the top of your maintenance list. Jordan Statham's point at The Conduction Company is that the money does not disappear: "You don't lose money putting in a switchboard." In The Conduction Company's experience, building inspectors look closely at switchboards, and an old one shows up on a pre-purchase building report as needing replacement, with a cost a buyer will factor in.
We quote on facts, not guesses
Before we give you a price, we carry out a proper assessment of your property and how you'll use the power in your home. That way you know exactly what you're buying and the total cost, with no surprises. Clear expectations from the outset, start to finish.
How to upgrade an old switchboard
The Conduction Company upgrades an old switchboard in four steps: a look at the board, a quote, one day on site, and the certificates.
A photo or a site visit. Send The Conduction Company a photo of your board first, and it can usually tell you whether an upgrade is coming before anyone visits. Otherwise someone opens the board and checks the cable behind it. Most switchboard quotes are free, and if a job needs an in-depth assessment that carries a cost, you are told that cost first.
The day. The power is off while the team works. The old board comes out, the new one goes in, and every circuit is re-terminated, labelled and tested. The Conduction Company sets out how long it takes to upgrade electrical service, and how to plan around a day without power, in a separate guide.
Faults that show up once it is live. When new protection goes in and the power comes back on, faults already on your circuits can trip it for the first time. The old protection was letting them through. The Conduction Company explains this before starting, because it is the one thing that can extend the day or add a charge. Everything else is priced ahead of time.
The lines company. Where there is no isolation point on site, the lines company, Vector across most of Auckland, sometimes has to disconnect and reconnect the power. The Conduction Company organises that every time.
The certificates. In law, a like-for-like board swap is low-risk work under regulation 6A(1) of the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010, which needs an Electrical Safety Certificate. An upgrade that adds RCDs is general prescribed electrical work and needs a Certificate of Compliance as well, and new mains work is high-risk and must be inspected (regulation 70). The EWRB, the Electrical Workers Registration Board, advises having switchboard upgrades inspected. The Conduction Company follows that advice and recommends the inspection, because it covers the electrician if the work is ever linked to a fire or an electric shock. The certificates, and any inspection, are priced into the quote up front.
In short
An old switchboard is due for replacing when it still has porcelain fuses, has no RCD protection, or has no space left for the circuits you need. A black asbestos backing panel is a strong sign the board is old, and the cable behind it decides whether a rewire comes with the upgrade. In most houses with modern TPS cable, the board can be replaced on its own. That is The Conduction Company's advice from its Auckland switchboard work, in the words of Jordan Statham, its director and a registered electrician and electrical inspector.
If you want someone to look at yours, The Conduction Company does switchboard upgrades and replacements across Auckland, from the assessment to the certificate. Send a photo of your board to start with, and the team will tell you honestly whether it needs doing.
Frequently asked questions
What is a switchboard upgrade?
A switchboard upgrade replaces an old board and its protective devices with a modern enclosure, circuit breakers and RCD protection. The Conduction Company re-terminates, labels and tests every circuit, then certifies the work. Where all the circuit protection on a board is replaced, New Zealand's wiring rules require RCD protection for the circuits it supplies.
Will an EV charger mean I need a new switchboard?
Usually not, in The Conduction Company's experience. The good EV chargers have dynamic load balancing, which watches what your home is drawing and adjusts the charger's current to keep you under the limit. Solar is more likely to force an upgrade, because its equipment needs physical space in the main board.
I am renting. What do I do about a switchboard problem?
Tell your landlord or property manager, with photos and a description, so there is a record that you raised it. If you can smell or hear anything at the board, treat it as urgent. If nothing is done and you are still worried, get an electrician out yourself. The Conduction Company writes clients a full report they can hand back to the landlord.
