A monthly look and an annual service, as recommended practice. No Australian standard sets a fixed service interval for a switchboard; the Wiring Rules say how to build it and AS/NZS 3019 says how to assess an installation, not how often. The interval the industry and insurers work to is a monthly walk past every board for tripped breakers, fault indicators, discolouration, a hot smell and a closed enclosure, and an annual service by a licensed electrician: connections checked for tightness, the interior cleaned, the circuit schedule verified, RCDs and RCBOs operating-time tested, the main earthing and MEN link verified, and thermal imaging of every board under load. The RCD testing inside that visit is a requirement under the workplace electrical safety rules; the rest is practice a careful owner and a demanding insurer both expect.
The intervals
| Interval | What happens | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly (recommended practice) | Owner walk past every board: tripped breakers, fault indicators, discolouration or a hot smell, enclosure closed and locked, switchroom clear and ventilated, no storage against the board. | Owner or staff |
| Six-monthly | RCD push-button test at every board, the workplace minimum; monthly is recommended and is the Standara library default. | Owner or staff |
| Annual (recommended practice, insurer expectation) | Connections checked for tightness, interior cleaned, circuit schedule verified against the installation, RCDs and RCBOs operating-time tested, main earthing and MEN link verified, thermal imaging of every board under load with a report. | Licensed electrician |
| Periodic assessment (AS/NZS 3019) | A formal assessment of the whole installation for continued safe use. The standard does not set a single interval; it follows the site risk, the age of the installation and the insurer's requirement, commonly five-yearly. | Licensed electrician |
Who does it and what to keep
A licensed electrician for everything behind the escutcheon; the owner for the monthly look and the push-button test. The record is the annual service report with the thermal images and the temperature rise at each connection, the RCD test register with trip times, the circuit schedule as verified, and the AS/NZS 3019 assessment report when one is done. Insurers ask for the thermal imaging report at renewal for larger premises, and after a fire the first request is the board's service history.
The rule behind the interval
AS/NZS 3000, the Wiring Rules, governs installation and is silent on in-service inspection. AS/NZS 3019 Electrical installations: Periodic verification, sets the method for assessing an existing installation and leaves the interval to the site. The model Work Health and Safety Regulations require electrical equipment at a workplace to be maintained safe and RCDs tested at set intervals; the state electrical safety regulations add the duty on the person in control of the installation. The annual service and thermal imaging are recommended practice under those duties, not a fixed statutory interval.
Common questions
Is thermal imaging required?
Not by a standard. It is the most effective single check on a switchboard and the one insurers of commercial buildings increasingly write into the policy, which is why it sits in the annual service as recommended practice. A board that has never been scanned is an unknown.
What does a periodic assessment under AS/NZS 3019 add?
A formal, documented verification of the whole installation against the current rules for continued safe use: earthing, protection, condition of wiring and boards, and a report of defects by risk. It is what a new owner, an insurer or a regulator asks for on an older building.
Put it in the register
An interval only holds when the asset is listed with its tasks, its contractor and where the record lives. Standara's library carries this asset with the tasks above attached, so adding it to a site's register produces the year's schedule, the monthly to-do list and the completion record the auditor or insurer asks for. The fuller picture, with the neighbouring assets and the rule behind each interval, is in the Electrical testing schedule.
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