Why Toronto's electrics are different
The land was bought in 1885 and subdivided in 1887 as the railway opened, and the Hotel Toronto went up the same year in local brick. In the north of the heritage precinct, council describes homes from the 1890s to the 1950s in timber and iron, among a lot of post-war buildings.
Timber homes this old have usually been rewired in patches. The risk is the patch nobody updated: a circuit with no safety switch, old cable in the roof space, or power points added off a lighting circuit.
Toronto at a glance
A heritage precinct
Council's Toronto Heritage Precinct covers the Victory Parade foreshore and shops, the foreshore homes east of Brighton Avenue and the peninsula to the north. Vernacular lakeside cottages survive on Victory Row.
Older owners, plenty of renters
At the 2021 Census, 37.4% of homes were owned outright and 34.9% were rented. 77.7% were separate houses.
When the lake rises
Lake Macquarie's record flood was 1.25 metres AHD on 18 June 1949, and it reached 1.05 metres AHD at Marks Point in June 2007.
On Ausgrid
Toronto sits in the Lake Macquarie part of Ausgrid's network. Faults and fallen lines go to Ausgrid on 13 13 88.
What's yours to do, and what needs a licence
You can
- Press the test button on each safety switch. NSW Fair Trading suggests doing it twice a year.
- Test smoke alarms and change batteries in any that take them.
- Note which circuit trips and when, so the electrician has something to go on.
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Anything behind a cover, faceplate or the switchboard door.
- Adding safety switches or replacing an old board.
- Replacing a hardwired smoke alarm.
- Checking old wiring in the roof of a period home.
If it were our Toronto cottage
We'd ask a licensed electrician for a full check of the installation, not just the job we called about. In an older lakeside home that one visit tells you what's been updated and what hasn't. Landlords should keep the report: it's the simplest way to show the place is safe.
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.