Oven installation electricians who check the circuit first

Before you buy, check two things: the appliance's installation instructions, and what your switchboard has spare. An induction cooktop is not a like for like swap for gas or an old ceramic hotplate. Most of them need their own dedicated circuit run back to the board, and on an older house there is often nothing spare to run it from. Far better to know that a fortnight out than on delivery morning with the kitchen fitter standing in the driveway.

We have done 492 oven and cooktop jobs since 2020, on top of 1,701 kitchen renovations. The pattern is familiar.

What the job usually involves

Freestanding ovens often arrive with a plug and lead, so if there is already a correctly rated dedicated power point behind the unit it can be straightforward. Cooktops are different. Almost all of them are hardwired, which means a cable run, an isolating switch somewhere you can actually reach without leaning across a hot pan, and the circuit sized for the load the manufacturer specifies. Rangehoods want a point in the cupboard above, positioned so the ducting still fits. All new work goes in to AS/NZS 3000, the Wiring Rules.

Induction is where the surprises happen. A full width induction cooktop draws a lot more than the old hotplates it replaced. If your board is full, we either free up space, add a sub board or quote a switchboard upgrade. We have done 1,006 switchboard jobs, so this is not something we hand off.

Commercial kitchens

Pubs, resorts and cafes are a big part of this work. The Court House Hotel and several of the other Macrossan Street venues are long standing customers. Commercial gear is a different animal: three phase, dedicated isolation, combi ovens, fryers and cool room compressors sharing a board that was sized for a smaller menu. Commercial customers get our Same Day Service Guarantee, so a call by 2pm on a business day is attended that day, and we run 24/7 emergency callout (939 emergency jobs and counting). A dead fryer at six on a Saturday in July is not a Monday problem.

The tropical bit

Outdoor and alfresco kitchens are everywhere up here, and salt air off the Coral Sea eats them. Isolators, power points and appliance connections in an open outdoor kitchen at Four Mile or Oak Beach corrode from the inside long before the stainless steel looks tired. We use properly rated weatherproof enclosures and stainless fixings. We also mount gear out of the wet season rain and the prevailing salt spray, rather than straight in front of it. Wet season humidity does the same slow damage inside a busy commercial kitchen with poor ventilation.

Can you trust us with it

Brad and Leanne Sims run BH Electrics out of Craiglie. QLD Electrical Contractor Licence 82270, fully insured, four electricians and two apprentices. When we install or alter a circuit for your oven or cooktop, you get a Certificate of Testing and Compliance from us as the licensed electrical contractor. That is the piece of paper your warranty claim, your insurer or your building certifier will eventually ask for. Keep it in the kitchen drawer.

If your oven has stopped rather than been replaced, start with fault finding. That is our biggest single category at 8,840 jobs, and often the element or the appliance is fine and the problem is the connection behind it.

Source: WorkSafe Queensland, issuing certificates of compliance.