How to Check a Licence Electrician, Brief the Job and Get It Done Properly

A licence number tells you more than a five-star badge when you choose an electrician. In Perth WA, check the licence first, then check whether the business actually does your type of work: residential, commercial or industrial.

Choosing wrong is not just an inconvenience. Electrical work sits behind your walls where you cannot inspect it, so the quality of an installation often only shows itself years later, usually at the least helpful moment. This guide sets out how to check a Perth WA electrician properly, what the licence classes actually mean in Western Australia, which jobs need an electrician and which need a plumber, and what to have ready when you get in touch so the first visit is productive.

Key Takeaways

• Start with the licence, not the logo. An electrical contractor’s licence is the one thing every other promise depends on.
• “Level 1” and “Level 2” are eastern-states terms. They are not the licence classes a Western Australian customer needs to ask about.
• Fault-finding jobs cannot be quoted before a tradesperson is on site, because the cause is only known once the system is tested.
• Residential, commercial and industrial work call for different experience, different equipment and different compliance paperwork.
• Planned maintenance catches faults while they are still small, which is nearly always less disruptive than waiting for a circuit to give up.

How do I find a good electrician?

Everything else, reviews, vehicles, response times, sits on top of those three.

That order matters because it is the one thing you can verify before anyone sets foot on your property. A licence is issued and monitored by the state regulator, which means it is a public fact rather than a marketing claim. Reviews tell you how a visit felt. A licence tells you whether the work behind your wall is lawful and testable.

Once the licence checks out, the useful questions get more specific. Ask who will actually attend, whether they carry the common parts for your type of job, and what paperwork you will receive when the work is finished. A professional electrician should be able to answer all three without hesitating, because it is the same answer they give every customer.

Here is a short checklist you can work through in a single phone call:

1. Is the business a licensed electrical contractor, and is the licence current as at 2026?
2. Will the person attending be a licensed electrician or an apprentice working under supervision?
3. Do you regularly do this type of work: domestic maintenance, a new home, a shopfront fitout, or industrial plant?
4. What suburbs do you cover, and roughly when could you start?
5. Will I receive a compliance certificate for the installation work?
6. If this turns out to be a fault rather than a defined job, how do you handle it?

A fast answer is not always the right answer, and the same is true of the work itself. A tradesperson who takes ten extra minutes to test a circuit properly saves you a second visit.

What is the difference between a Level 1 and Level 2 electrician?

Level 1 and Level 2 are accreditation terms used by electricity networks on the east coast, mainly to describe who may work on network connections and overhead or underground service lines. They are not the licence classes a Western Australian customer should be asking about. So searching for them locally will mostly return interstate results.

In Western Australia, electrical work is regulated by the state’s electrical safety regulator, Building and Energy, which licenses both electrical workers and electrical contracting businesses. The practical distinction for a homeowner or business owner here is between the individual holding an electrician’s licence and the business holding a contractor’s licence. You generally want both present on the job: a licensed business standing behind the work and a licensed electrician carrying it out.

The second practical distinction is scope. Work on the supply network itself, the poles, the mains and the metering, is handled differently to work on your own installation, which starts at the switchboard and runs to every socket, light and piece of fixed equipment in the building. If your whole street has lost power, that is a network issue. If only your property is dark, that is usually yours.

So the useful version of the question is not “what level are you”, it is “are you licensed in WA, and is this job on my side of the meter or the network’s side”. Ask that and you will get a straight answer every time.

Who regulates the work, and why safety drives everything

Electrical work is one of the few trades where a mistake can be invisible for years and then fatal in a second. That is why the regulator, the Wiring Rules and the compliance paperwork exist, and why our team of tradesmen and apprentices adhere to the Australian standards for Occupational Health and Safety, Wiring Rules and the other regulations brought out by the Australian government.

The trade is watched closely at a national level too. And its workforce overview is derived from Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census data, counting people by place of usual residence (Safe Work Australia). That profile exists because the risks in this trade are specific and well documented, not general.

There is a change worth knowing about if you ever look up workforce data yourself. If you are comparing figures from different years, check which classification they sit under before you draw a conclusion.

Safety is one of our stated company values, and it applies to our team members, our clients and the community in every job we take on. In practice that means isolating properly, testing before touching, and issuing the compliance documentation that proves the installation meets the rules.

Residential, commercial and industrial: what a licensed local team covers

Our team works across Perth WA, Byford, Fremantle, Midland and Rockingham on switchboards, lighting, RCDs and three-phase equipment, and we also handle fault-finding, test and tag, and compliance certificates. The scope changes a great deal depending on which of those three worlds your building sits in.

The reason we separate them is simple. A tradesperson who spends every day on domestic maintenance builds a different instinct to one who spends every day on industrial plant. Both are valuable. They are not interchangeable.

The faults Perth WA properties actually throw up

Perth WA’s housing stock spans 1920s weatherboards through to 2026 land releases in Baldivis, which means the fault patterns we see vary enormously by suburb and build era. An older home in Fremantle and a new build in Rockingham will fail in completely different ways. And the repairs look nothing alike.

In established homes, the recurring themes are ageing switchboards without modern RCD protection, brittle insulation on older circuits, and circuits that were never designed for the number of appliances now plugged into them. In newer homes, the more common calls are nuisance tripping from a single faulty appliance, downlight and fan additions after handover, and outdoor power that was not planned for a later patio or shed.

Commercial and industrial sites have their own pattern. Loads creep upward as businesses add equipment, and a distribution board that was correct on day one quietly becomes the weak point three fitouts later. Machinery faults show up as intermittent trips long before anything stops working outright.

The short version is that small faults rarely fix themselves. A circuit that trips once will usually trip again, and the second time tends to be less convenient than the first.

When it is an electrician, and when it is not

One of the most useful things we can tell you is when not to call us. Sending the wrong trade to a problem wastes your time and ours. So here is the split we work to when someone rings the office.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who should I call first when the power goes out in Perth WA?

For anything involving smoke, fire or a fallen power line, call 000 first, then your electricity network operator. If the whole street has lost power, that is a network issue for the operator. If only your property is dark, that is usually your installation, and a licensed electrician is who you need.

How can a licence be checked before electrical work starts in Western Australia?

Check that the business holds a current electrical contractor’s licence and that the person attending holds an electrician’s licence, both issued and monitored by Building and Energy, WA’s electrical safety regulator. A licence is a public fact rather than a marketing claim. So it can be verified before anyone sets foot on the property.

What is the difference between a Level 1 and Level 2 electrician, and do those terms apply in Western Australia?

Those terms describe east coast network accreditation and do not apply in Western Australia. Here, the practical distinction is between an individual holding an electrician’s licence and a business holding a contractor’s licence, and you want both on the job. The other distinction is scope: work on your own installation versus work on the supply network.

What does a residential electrician in Perth WA typically handle compared with commercial electrical contractors?

Residential Electrician work covers switchboard and RCD upgrades, lighting and fans, power points, renovation and new build rough-in, and fault repairs, usually single-phase with occupants on site. Commercial Electrician work involves office and retail fitouts, shopfront lighting, distribution boards and planned maintenance, with trading hours, tenancy rules, more documentation and staged work so the business keeps running.

Frequently Asked Questions