Thornlie, stage by stage
North-east Thornlie, 1950s and 1960s
The first estate was auctioned after 1954 and development was approved by June 1956. Homes this old can have rewireable fuses, few power points and no safety switches.
South Thornlie and Crestwood, 1970s and 1980s
Crestwood was an upmarket estate planned around shared facilities. Boards from this period vary: some have circuit breakers but too few RCDs for today's rules.
Castle Glen and Forest Lakes
Both aimed at affordable homes for young families, with Forest Lakes building from the 1980s onwards.
Big blocks
Lots are typically 700 to 900 square metres, which brings sheds, pools and long runs out to garden lights.
The numbers
91.1% of homes were separate houses in 2021, 33.3% owned outright and 21.1% rented, across 9,173 private dwellings. Postcode 6108 has 5,741 solar systems on the Clean Energy Regulator's count.
Outdoor power on a Thornlie block
A shed, pool pump or garden lights at the back of a big block means a long circuit outdoors. That's licensed work from start to finish: the cable run, the outdoor power point and the safety switch protecting it. Outdoor power points and garden lighting go into the detail.
If the circuit is feeding a shed with lights and several tools, ask whether it should have its own small switchboard.
What you can do, and what's licensed
You can
- Work out roughly when your home was built from its part of Thornlie.
- Press each RCD's test button every three months, as Building and Energy recommends.
- Note which outdoor things trip the power, and when.
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Any new outdoor circuit, power point or light.
- Upgrading an old fuse board.
- Replacing an RCD that won't reset or fails its test.
Our pick for older Thornlie homes
If you're in the 1950s or 1960s streets and the board still has fuses, we'd sort the board before any outdoor project. A new shed circuit hanging off an old fuse board is doing things in the wrong order.
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.