What's different about Hurstville
Units outnumber houses two to one
Hurstville had 10,530 occupied private dwellings at the 2021 Census. 61.4% were flats or apartments and only 30.0% were separate houses. High-rise residential towers now dominate the skyline of the commercial centre.
Almost half the homes are rented
47.4% of Hurstville homes were rented in 2021. In NSW, any electrical fault in a rental is an urgent repair, and a faulty safety switch counts as one too.
Some houses predate 1900
The station opened in 1884, and Gladwyn on Queens Road was built in 1893. Houses that old have usually been rewired at least once, but not always all the way through.
Ausgrid runs the poles and wires
Hurstville sits inside Ausgrid's network area. A blackout across the building or the street, or a wire down, goes to Ausgrid on 13 13 88.
In a unit, whose switchboard is it?
Usually there are two layers. The small board inside your apartment is the owner's. The main switchroom, lift, car park lights and hallway circuits are common property, run by the owners corporation through the strata manager.
That split decides who you call. A dead kitchen power point is a job for your own electrician, or your landlord's. A dark floor or a basement fault goes to the building manager first.
Can I charge an EV in a Hurstville apartment block?
Often, but not on your own say-so yet. In NSW a wall charger in an apartment needs strata approval, and the building has to follow the Strata Schemes Management Act. A strata bill passed in October 2026 gives owners a right to charging on their own lot, without unreasonable objection. The government's 16 October announcement had no start date.
Start with a load check of the building's supply by an electrician who has wired chargers into strata car parks. That's what the committee will want to see.
Renting here? What the landlord has to sort
Electrical faults are urgent repairs, and your landlord must get them done within a reasonable time. Smoke alarms run on a two business day clock once the landlord knows one isn't working. If a hardwired alarm isn't fixed in time, the tenant can arrange it, through a licensed electrician only.
What you can do, and what's licensed work
You can
- Reset a tripped safety switch once. If it trips again straight away, leave it off.
- Report building-wide faults to the strata or building manager.
- Put repair requests to your landlord or agent in writing, with the date.
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Anything inside your unit's board or the building's switchroom.
- New circuits for an induction cooktop or an EV charger.
- Replacing a hardwired smoke alarm.
If this were our unit
We'd work out where the fault lives before calling anyone: inside the apartment, or in the common wiring. Then we'd get one electrician who does strata work to look at it, and ask for the Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work (CCEW) when they're done. In a building this size, that paper trail saves arguments with the strata later.
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.