Buderim, up close
On a mountain
Buderim sits on a 180-metre mountain above the southern Sunshine Coast. Steep land once thought too expensive to build on was developed in the 2000s.
Overlays on the map
Council's planning maps for Buderim carry landslide and steep land, bushfire, flood, and heritage and character overlays.
Storm claims
Suncorp said there was no clear indication why Buderim ranked so high. In May 2021 it was among the suburbs hit by a storm that left more than 5,000 coast homes without power.
Big suburb, mostly houses
31,430 people lived here in 2021. 73.3% of homes were separate houses, and 20.7% were rented.
Queenslanders to modern builds
Buderim's houses range from classic Queenslanders to one-off modern designs, so the switchboard you're dealing with could be decades old or nearly new.
The jobs storms leave behind
Lightning nearby can send a surge down the lines and into anything plugged in. A surge protector at the switchboard won't stop a direct strike, but it helps shield the house from spikes coming in on the supply. Surge protection explains the options.
On steep blocks, garden lights, outdoor power and pool pumps often sit at the end of long cable runs down the slope. When water gets into one of those fittings, the safety switch should trip. If it trips every time it rains, that circuit needs finding and fixing, not resetting again and again.
Branches on the street's lines are the network's problem, not yours. Stay well back and ring Energex on 13 19 62 if a line is down, or 13 62 62 for a blackout.
After a storm: you and the electrician
You can
- Reset a tripped safety switch once; if it trips again, leave it off
- Unplug computers and TVs before a storm arrives
- Report fallen lines to Energex and keep everyone away from them
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Finding the wet or damaged circuit
- Fitting surge protection at the switchboard
- Repairing storm-damaged outdoor lights and power points
If it were our place on the mountain
Given Buderim's storm record, we'd ask an electrician about surge protection at the board and have every outdoor circuit checked for a working safety switch. We'd do it over winter, before storm season usually starts in November.
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.