Certificate of Electrical Safety: what Traralgon owners should know

A Certificate of Electrical Safety (COES) is the legal record of electrical work done at a property in Victoria, issued by the Registered Electrical Contractor or licensed electrician who did the job. You should get one for almost every electrical job, from a new power point to a full switchboard. For bigger work on the supply side of the house, such as the main switchboard or meter box, an independent inspector has to check the work before it is switched on, and the timing of your copy is different.

What is a Certificate of Electrical Safety?

Energy Safe Victoria calls the COES a legal document. It is required by the Electricity Safety Act 1998, with the working detail set out in the Electricity Safety (General) Regulations 2019. It records what work was done, where and by whom. The contractor or electrician lodges it with Energy Safe and gives a copy to the customer. Energy Safe’s certificate information for consumers is the primary reference for everything on this page.

For a homeowner, the certificate is the paper trail. Insurers, buyers’ inspectors and future electricians may all want to know what was done to the installation and when. A certificate in a drawer answers that in a way a tax invoice does not.

What is the difference between prescribed and non-prescribed work?

Energy Safe splits electrical work into two groups, and the group decides whether an inspector is involved.

	Prescribed work	Non-prescribed work
Examples	Consumer mains cables, the main switchboard, the meter box, the main earthing system, motor generator installations, solar and other renewable generation systems	Lights, power points, air conditioning, hot water services and similar
Inspection	By an independent Licensed Electrical Inspector, arranged by the contractor or electrician	None required
When power goes on	Not until the inspection is done	When the work is complete
Inspection timing	Should be completed within 8 business days of the work being finished	Not applicable
Your copy of the COES	Within 4 days of completion of the certificate, once inspection is complete	Within 30 days

So a new ceiling fan or a few downlights from our lighting and ceiling fans page is non-prescribed work, while replacing the main board, as described on the switchboard upgrades page, is prescribed. A home battery or solar system also falls in the prescribed group.

When should I make sure I get a certificate?

Ask for the COES whenever a licensed electrician does work at your home. It matters most:

• After a switchboard upgrade, a rewire or new consumer mains.
• After an EV charger, a heat pump circuit or an induction cooktop circuit is installed.
• After repairs that came out of a rental electrical safety check.
• Before you sell, so a buyer can see what was done and when.
• After storm or flood damage repairs, for your insurer.

A tidy approach is to ask at quote stage how the certificate will be sent, and to hold the final payment until you have it. If a business says a certificate is not needed for the work you are paying for, ask which part of the work it thinks is exempt, and check with Energy Safe.

How do I check whether past work at a house was certified?

This often comes up when buying or selling an older Traralgon house, or when you move in and find work that nobody can explain. Energy Safe runs a COES search on its public register page.

Things to know before you search:

1. The search covers electronic certificates from July 2019 onwards.
2. It returns the certificate number only, not the document.
3. To get a copy, or to search for older records, you apply using Energy Safe’s COES search application form. Energy Safe provides this search at no fee.
4. You need proof of connection to the property, such as a council rates notice, a utilities notice, or a Victorian driver’s licence showing your name and the property address.
5. Processing can take up to 5 business days.
6. Contractors and electricians only have to keep copies for three years, and Energy Safe will not chase records older than that.

The COES search does not find rental electrical safety check reports. A COES is the wrong form for that check in any case, as our rental checklist explains.

How do I check the electrician and the inspector?

Energy Safe’s public register page also holds the Registered Electrical Contractor Register, the Licensed Electrical Worker Search, the Licensed Electrical Inspector Register, the Inspection Company Register and a COES Defects List. Every search sits behind a CAPTCHA, so you type the characters shown before the result appears.

A sensible order:

• Check the business name against the contractor register before you accept a quote.
• Check the name of the person on the tools against the worker search.
• For prescribed work, ask who the inspector is and check the inspector register.

Victoria only allows licensed people to do electrical work. Energy Safe warns that work by anyone unlicensed or unqualified is against the law and can kill, and the certificate is how a licensed person puts their name to a job.

What should the certificate show?

When the certificate arrives, read it against the job you paid for. Look for:

• The property address, spelled correctly.
• A description of the work that matches the invoice.
• The name and licence or registration details of the person and business.
• For prescribed work, the inspector’s details and the inspection date.
• The date the work was finished.

If the description is vague, such as a single line for a large job, ask the business to explain what is covered. The certificate is lodged with Energy Safe, so errors are worth sorting out while the job is fresh.

What if work at my house was done without a certificate?

It happens, usually with older jobs or work a previous owner arranged. Do not try to trace or test the work yourself. Ask a licensed electrician to inspect it. If the work is sound, the electrician can tell you what they found; if it is not, they can quote to repair or replace it, and that new work will come with its own certificate. Keep the inspection report with your house papers. If you suspect the work was done by someone unlicensed, Energy Safe is the body to tell, because it regulates electrical work in Victoria. A buyer’s inspector or insurer will usually be more interested in a current inspection result than in an explanation of what happened years ago.

How does this fit with the cost of a job?

The certificate is part of the job, not an optional extra, and the inspection cost for prescribed work is normally built into the quote. Our Traralgon cost guide lists Melbourne guide ranges for common jobs and what a written quote should cover. When comparing quotes, make sure each one says the COES is included, and for board or mains work, whether the inspection fee is inside the price.

When the work is quoted by an independent local electrician through an enquiry on this site, that business issues the certificate; this site never does. The about page sets out who is responsible for what. If you already know the job, you can describe the electrical work you need certified now.

A note for Traralgon buyers and sellers

Traralgon grew fast with the power industry after the Second World War. An established house from those years may have had several owners, an extension or two and electrical work by different people over time. Certificates only became searchable electronically from July 2019, so for older work there may be no record online even when the work was done properly. If a house has a newer board or extension with no paperwork, a whole-of-house electrical safety check gives a current picture that does not depend on old records.

Next step: ask for the certificate with the quote

If you are about to get electrical work done, put these in your enquiry so the business can tell you what kind of certificate and inspection applies:

• The work you want, in plain terms (for example, replace the fuse board, add a circuit for a heat pump, install a wall charger).
• Whether the job touches the meter box, main switch or the cable from the street.
• The suburb and rough age of the house.
• Any existing certificates you hold for past work.

Then send your job details and ask about the certificate, and say you want the COES and any inspection listed in the written quote.

Send a job enquiry