How Elizabeth was built
A town in a hurry
Work on the first neighbourhood, Elizabeth South, started in 1954, and the first houses were occupied in 1955. Between 1957 and 1965 the Housing Trust built 1,000 houses a year here, all of them one-level bungalows.
Sewered and wired underground
The state's postwar heritage survey says Elizabeth stood out from other new suburbs of the time for its open space, planted trees, sewerage from the start and underground power lines.
Brick, with cavities
Most Trust homes of that austerity era were brick with cavity walls. That can sometimes let an electrician drop new cable to a power point without cutting into the brickwork.
More renters than owners
Around the town centre, 52.9% of occupied homes were rented in 2021, with 19.4% owned outright. 68.7% were separate houses.
Hail in 2021
Elizabeth was one of the places most early insurance claims came from after the hail, rain and wind of 29 October 2021.
What that means for the jobs here
Bungalows wired for a few lights, a stove and a radiogram now run split systems, big fridges and computers. The usual jobs follow: more power points, a dedicated circuit for air conditioning, and a switchboard upgrade where the board still has rewireable fuses or no safety switches.
Underground supply means fewer storm problems with the line to your house, but it also means cables in the ground near the front boundary. Anyone planning a fence, a driveway or a new garden bed should have the cables located before digging.
Elizabeth South was proposed as a Historic Conservation Zone in a 1997 heritage survey. If your street has character controls, check with the City of Playford before changing anything visible from the street, such as moving a meter box.
What you can do, and what needs a licensed electrician
You can
- Reset a tripped safety switch once, after unplugging everything on that circuit
- Plug appliances back in one at a time to find the one causing trips
- Write down which lights and power points stopped working
- Ring SA Power Networks on 13 13 66 if the whole street is out
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Replacing fuses with circuit breakers and adding safety switches
- New circuits for air conditioners, ovens or EV chargers
- Adding or moving power points and light fittings
- Any work near the meter box or the underground service cable
If it were our Elizabeth bungalow
We'd have the board checked before adding anything big, like a second air conditioner or an induction cooktop. In a house this age, that one visit tells you whether the wiring can take the load or needs work first, and it's the difference between a planned job and a fault on a 40-degree day.
Want a specialist to sort it?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match the licence-checked local electrician who does this kind of work, and they call you. No ring-around, and your number goes to them alone.