23/02/2026
A quick insight into what we actually spend most of our time doing during a rental electrical inspection…
A lot of people assume we walk around plugging a tester into a few power points, tick a box, and that’s about it.
Honestly — the majority of the inspection is focused on two things:
The earthing system
and,
The safety switches (RCDs)
Because nearly every serious electrical injury in a house comes down to one of these not doing its job.
The earthing system
This is the part of the installation nobody ever sees, and the one that often hasn’t been looked at since the house was built… sometimes 50+ years ago.
It’s what gives electricity a safe path to ground if something inside an appliance fails and energises metal parts — ovens, washing machines, taps, sinks, even the frame of the house wiring itself.
If the earthing is damaged, missing, corroded, undersized, or disconnected, the electricity doesn’t disappear safely.
It waits.
Usually for a person to become the path instead.
You can have modern appliances, new lights, and a tidy switchboard — but if the earthing is compromised, the installation isn’t safe.
Safety switches (RCDs)
RCDs don’t stop faults from happening.
They stop faults from killing people.
They monitor the electricity leaving and returning to the circuit, and if even a tiny amount of current goes somewhere it shouldn’t (like through a person), they disconnect the power in milliseconds.
But only if they:
• exist
• are wired correctly
• trip within the required time
• protect the right circuits
We regularly find:
– circuits not protected
– nuisance tripping that’s been bypassed
– failed RCDs
– incorrectly labelled boards
– brand new switchboards with dangerous wiring faults
The report isn’t really about just the paperwork for the owner or property manager — it’s about making sure the person living there is protected if something goes wrong at the worst possible moment.
Most houses never have an electrical incident.
But the ones that do rely entirely on earthing and RCD protection to stop it becoming a tragedy.
That’s why we focus on them so heavily.