Why do the costs vary so much between similar jobs?

Because the visible part of the job is rarely the expensive part. Two EV chargers can differ by a thousand dollars purely on cable run distance. Two switchboard upgrades can differ by two thousand on whether the existing circuits are identifiable and whether the board is mounted on asbestos backing. This is why we quote after looking rather than from a price list.

Can you do a job like one of these at my place?

Almost certainly, though the specifics will differ. The pattern that repeats across nearly every case study here is that the switchboard and the cable route determine the price far more than the equipment does. Send a photo of the inside of your board to info@pivottradeservices.com.au and we can usually tell you within a phone call which band you are in.

Do you take on staged work like the Footscray rewire?

Regularly. Staging is often the sensible answer for older homes where a full rewire in one hit is not affordable, or where a renovation is coming that will open the walls anyway. We set out which work is urgent for safety, which can wait, and what the total looks like across both stages so you are not making the decision blind.

How do you handle the rebate paperwork on jobs like these?

We handle it. Victorian Energy Upgrades discounts are calculated and taken straight off the invoice, STCs are assigned to us and deducted from the quoted price, and Solar Victoria and Cheaper Home Batteries applications are lodged at our end. The quote shows the incentive as a separate line so you can see exactly what was applied.

What the work actually looks like, suburb by suburb

Recent Projects Across Melbourne’s West

Photographs of panels on a roof do not tell you much. What actually decides whether a job goes well is the stuff you cannot see in a photo: what was behind the switchboard panel, how far the cable had to travel, whether the roof face that looked good from the street was shaded at 3pm in June, and whether anybody checked before quoting.

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The short answer

This page collects representative jobs completed by Pivot Trade Services across Melbourne’s western suburbs, covering switchboard upgrades, rooftop solar, home batteries, heat pump hot water, heating and cooling, and EV charging. Each case study sets out the original problem, what was installed and the measured outcome, with system sizes, equipment and typical 2026 costs. Examples span Altona, Williamstown, Point Cook, Werribee, Yarraville, Newport, Footscray and Sunshine, all certified under REC 37223.

The case studies below are representative of the work we do across the west. Client names and addresses are not published, but the technical detail, the equipment and the cost ranges are real and consistent with what we quote in 2026. If one of them looks like your house, the answer to what it would cost at your place still depends on your board and your roof, which is why we look first.

ElectricalAltona North

Ceramic fuse board replaced before anything else could be added

The problem: A 1950s home with the original rewireable ceramic fuse board and no RCD protection on any final subcircuit. The owners had a solar quote from another company that made no mention of the board. The oven had been tripping the house intermittently for a year and a previous electrician had simply replaced a fuse wire.
What we did: Full board replacement with individual RCBOs per circuit, a new main switch, correct circuit identification and labelling, and four spare ways left deliberately empty for a future inverter, battery and EV charger. Existing circuits were tested individually and one length of brittle rubber-insulated cable feeding the laundry was replaced during the same visit.
The outcome: Nuisance tripping stopped once the actual fault, a degraded oven element circuit, was isolated rather than worked around. The solar install that followed six months later needed no additional board work, so the second job came in at the price quoted with no variation.

Board typeCeramic fuses replaced with per-circuit RCBOs
Circuits11 identified, tested and relabelled
Spare ways left4, for inverter, battery and EV charger
Cost bandMid range of $800 to $3,500+

ElectricalFootscray

Staged rewire through a terrace with no side access

The problem: A Victorian terrace with party walls on both sides, original wiring layered under two renovations, and no usable side access for cable routing. Lights flickered when the front door slammed. A full rewire in one hit was not affordable, and the owners were planning a kitchen renovation eighteen months out.
What we did: Staged approach. Stage one replaced the board, added RCD protection and rewired the two worst circuits, the kitchen and the front rooms, routing through the roof space and around the perimeter rather than through the party walls. Stage two was scheduled to coincide with the kitchen renovation while walls were already open, which removed most of the making-good cost.
The outcome: The immediate safety issues were resolved for a fraction of a full rewire price, and the remaining work was absorbed into a renovation that was happening anyway. Total spend across both stages was lower than the single-visit full rewire quote the owners started with.

PropertyVictorian terrace, party walls both sides
Stage oneBoard, RCDs, two circuits rewired
Stage twoRemaining circuits during kitchen renovation
Cable routeRoof space and perimeter, no party wall penetration

SolarAltona Meadows

10.6kW array sized for daytime use, not maximum export

The problem: A large single-storey estate home with an excellent unshaded north and west roof. The owners had two quotes proposing the biggest system the roof would hold, both written as though the old feed-in tariff still applied. Their actual consumption was heavily weighted to evenings.
What we did: A 10.6kW array on a Fronius inverter, deliberately weighted toward the west face to push generation later into the afternoon, plus a timer moved the pool pump and hot water into the middle of the day. Powercor export limits were confirmed before design rather than after approval.
The outcome: Self-consumption rose to a little over half of generation instead of the roughly 25 percent the original layout would have delivered. With export worth under 5 cents and peak import at 30 to 45 cents, the smaller shift in timing was worth more than the extra kilowatts the other quotes proposed.

System size10.6kW array
InverterFronius
OrientationNorth and west split, weighted west
DistributorPowercor, export limit confirmed pre-design

SolarWilliamstown

Solar on a heritage roof with chimney shading

The problem: A period home near Nelson Place with slate on the original section, a Colorbond rear extension, two chimneys and a heritage overlay restricting visible hardware on the street elevation. Two earlier quotes proposed a single array on the front face without modelling the chimney shadow.
What we did: A split array across the rear extension and a side face, keeping panels off the street elevation entirely. Shading was modelled through the winter afternoon rather than assumed, and the layout was adjusted to avoid the chimney shadow at the times of day the household actually uses power. The inverter was mounted internally to keep it out of direct salt exposure.
The outcome: A smaller system than the earlier quotes, producing close to the modelled figure through its first winter rather than falling short. The heritage constraints were resolved at design stage instead of becoming a problem after installation.

RoofHeritage slate plus Colorbond rear extension
ArraySplit across two faces, street elevation clear
ShadingWinter afternoon chimney shadow modelled
Inverter sitingInternal, away from coastal salt exposure

BatteriesPoint Cook

Battery retrofit sized from a year of real data

The problem: An estate home with an existing 6.6kW system installed by another company, an EV in the garage and two competing battery quotes, both proposing more storage than the household could cycle. The switchboard was modern but had only two spare ways, which neither quote had accounted for.
What we did: Twelve months of interval data was reviewed before sizing. A 13.5kWh battery was specified with a dedicated backup circuit covering the fridge, lighting and two power points, and the EV charger was reconfigured with load management so charging throttles when the battery is discharging into the evening peak.
The outcome: The battery cycles almost fully most days rather than sitting part-charged, and evening grid import dropped substantially. Choosing the smaller of the three proposed sizes saved several thousand dollars up front without changing what the household actually stores.

Battery13.5kWh, retrofitted to existing solar
Backup circuitFridge, lighting, two GPOs
EV integrationLoad management, charging throttled at peak
Cost band$8,000 to $12,000 before rebates

Heat pump hot waterNewport

Gas storage hot water replaced with a heat pump on a daytime timer

The problem: A period home where the gas storage unit failed on a weekend. The household already had solar and was exporting most of it for under 5 cents. The obvious replacement was another gas unit, which would have locked in a supply charge and a rising gas rate for another decade.
What we did: A Rheem heat pump hot water system installed in the existing external location, with a new dedicated circuit from the board and a timer set to run the compressor in the middle of the day when the solar is generating. Victorian Energy Upgrades and STC paperwork was handled at our end and discounted directly off the invoice.
The outcome: Hot water is now largely heated with solar that was previously being exported for almost nothing, and the gas connection could be reviewed once the cooktop was addressed. Stacked incentives took more than $3,000 off the installed price.

UnitRheem heat pump, external replacement position
Before incentives$3,000 to $4,500
Incentives appliedVEU plus STCs, commonly $3,000+
OperationTimed midday run off existing solar

Heating and coolingHoppers Crossing

Failing gas ducted replaced with refrigerated ducted

The problem: A large single-storey 1990s family home with a gas ducted system at the end of its life and evaporative cooling that struggled through humid days. Running two separate systems meant two sets of maintenance and no ability to use daytime solar for heating.
What we did: Mitsubishi Electric ducted refrigerated heating and cooling replacing both systems, reusing sound sections of existing ductwork where inspection allowed and replacing the rest. Zoning was set up so the bedroom wing and living areas run independently, and a new dedicated circuit was run after confirming the 1990s board had RCD protection retrofitted first.
The outcome: One system instead of two, with heating now running on electricity the roof generates during the day. Zoning cut the conditioned floor area in daily use by roughly half, which matters more to running cost than the headline efficiency figure on the unit.

SystemMitsubishi Electric ducted refrigerated
ReplacedGas ducted heating plus evaporative cooling
ZonesBedroom wing and living areas independent
Board workRCD retrofit before new dedicated circuit

EV chargingWerribee

EV charger 28 metres from the board in a detached garage

The problem: A large block with a detached rear garage roughly 28 metres from the meter box. An earlier quote had priced a standard wall-mounted charger at the low end of the range without walking the cable route, which would have left the owners with a substantial variation on install day.
What we did: A trenched conduit run to the garage with a correctly sized sub-main, a dedicated circuit and a wall-mounted charger with load management. Three-phase supply was already available at the property, so the installation was configured to allow a future upgrade to faster charging without redoing the cable run.
The outcome: The job came in above the typical $1,200 to $2,200 single-phase band, as it always would have, but it was quoted at that number from the start rather than discovered mid-install. The sub-main also gave the garage proper lighting and power circuits it had never had.

Cable run28m trenched conduit to detached garage
SupplyThree phase available, single phase charger fitted
ExtrasSub-main, garage lighting and power circuits
Future proofingCable sized for later three-phase charging

Job photography

Recent installs, photographed on site

Panels going down on a Melbourne roof
Every circuit labelled before we hand it back
A completed home battery cabinet with isolation labelling
A tethered charger, wired back to its own circuit
Same footprint, roughly a third of the running cost
Gauges on during a service, checking the charge
Feature pendant fitted and balanced
Exterior and garden lighting on a Melbourne home
Larger arrays need the inverter and switchboard sized to match

Every photograph here is a Pivot Trade Services job. Nothing on this page is a catalogue render.

Answers

Frequently asked questions

Question not covered here?

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Yes. They are drawn from work completed across the western suburbs and the technical detail, equipment and cost bands are accurate. We do not publish client names, addresses or identifying photographs, because people generally do not want their switchboard on the internet. If you want references for a particular type of job, ask when we quote.

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