For property managers
After-Hours Care
Anyone can ring after hours. There is no guaranteed response time, and that is deliberate. If we cannot get there we will say so on the call, so you can ring somebody else instead of waiting on a maybe.
NextPoint Electrics. Registered electrical contractor REC 346464. Lifetime workmanship warranty.
What after hours actually means here
Most after hours pages promise something the business cannot keep. This one does not, because a property manager who has been told help is coming and then waits all night is worse off than one who was told no at ten past seven.
So, plainly. Anyone can ring the same number after hours. You get a person, not a call centre and not a message service. You describe what the tenant has reported, and you get a straight answer about whether he can get there tonight or first thing. There is no guaranteed response time on this page and there will not be one, because a single electrician cannot honestly promise one. If he cannot get to your property, he says so on that call, so you can ring somebody else immediately instead of losing two hours waiting.
Two ways to reach us
After hours, ring. 1300 322 320. An email at nine at night will not be read at nine at night. General enquiries during the day go to info@nextpointelectrics.com.au.
Property managers we already work with: work orders go to workorders@nextpointelectrics.com.au. Use that for anything that can wait until business hours, and the phone for anything that cannot.
What counts as an after hours electrical emergency in a rental
The list is shorter than most tenants think and longer than most owners would like. These are the ones that justify a call tonight.
- A burning smell. Hot plastic, or a smell around a switchboard, a light fitting or a power point. This is the one that should never wait until Monday.
- Sparking. From a point, a switch, a fitting or the board, whether or not anything is still working.
- Exposed live parts. A cracked power point, a broken fitting with wiring visible, a cable pulled out of a wall.
- Water into a switchboard or a light fitting. Common after a storm on the bay and after a roof leak that nobody knew about.
- Total loss of power to the property, where the neighbours still have theirs and the main switch will not stay on.
- Hot water failure where an infant or an elderly tenant lives. Not an electrical danger, but a welfare problem, and it gets treated as one.
What can wait for a normal booking
- One power point not working while the rest of the property is fine.
- A blown lamp or a dead downlight.
- An oven that has stopped heating.
- A noisy exhaust fan or ceiling fan.
None of that is a criticism of a tenant for ringing. They are not electricians and an oven dying the night before a birthday genuinely feels urgent. It is simply cheaper for the owner if it goes through as an ordinary maintenance work order in the morning, because after hours work is charged at a different rate.
What the tenant should do before anyone arrives
Worth putting in your after hours script, because it prevents damage and sometimes solves the problem outright.
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If the fault followed an appliance, turn it off and unplug it
Heater, kettle, washing machine, whatever was switched on when it happened. A faulty appliance is the most common cause of a circuit tripping in a rental, and unplugging it often lets the rest of the house come back on.
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Do not keep resetting a safety switch that keeps tripping
The safety switch is the device in the switchboard that cuts power in a fraction of a second when current leaks somewhere it should not, which is usually through a faulty appliance or wet wiring, and sometimes through a person. It is doing its job when it trips. One reset to see if it holds is reasonable. Pushing it back up ten times does not fix the fault, it wears out the mechanism, and a worn safety switch is one that might not trip when somebody is actually in contact with a fault. Leave it off and ring.
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If there is a burning smell, turn the main switch off and ring
Main switch off first, then the call. Do not open the switchboard, do not go looking for the source, and do not wait to see whether the smell goes away.
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Keep away from anything wet near electrics
Water into a fitting or a board after a storm means nobody touches switches in that area until the circuit is isolated.
What after hours costs
After hours work is charged at a different rate to normal hours. That rate is confirmed with you on the phone before anybody is dispatched, so the decision to send someone tonight is made by you with the number in front of you, not discovered on an invoice a fortnight later. If the fault can safely wait until morning, we will say so, because an ordinary weekday attendance is a better outcome for the owner and you are the one who has to explain the bill.
Price missing, do not fill with a guess
What Luke needs to supply: the confirmed after hours rate card. Specifically, the hourly rate or call out for weeknights after hours, weekends and public holidays, whether there is a minimum charge, and the exact hours at which the standard rate stops applying.
Why this slot is empty: no after hours rate has been confirmed in writing, and inventing one would be the fastest way to lose an agency's trust. Until Luke supplies it, this page says the rate is confirmed on the phone, because that is the truth.
Where you stand when the answer is no
Sometimes it will be. we may already be under a house in Queenscliff, or the job may need two people, or it may be outside the 35 km radius of the Geelong CBD that we work in. In any of those cases you get told on the call, in the first minute, and where we can we will tell you what the tenant should do to stay safe until somebody gets there. Nobody is kept on the hook to protect a booking. That is the whole point of this page.
Fewer after hours calls is the real goal
Almost every emergency call has a history. The power point that sparked had been loose for months. The switchboard that flooded had no cover on the meter box. The alarm screaming at 2am was dusty in January. Agencies that get their portfolios looked at properly ring after hours far less often, which is better for tenants, cheaper for owners and easier on your evenings.
Most of that work is done in daylight rather than at night. Pre-letting checks through electrical maintenance catch the tired fittings and dead points while the property is empty, which is where a good share of after hours calls come from.
After hours questions
Asked most often
How quickly will someone get to the property?
There is no guaranteed response time and we will not publish one. What you get instead is a straight answer on the call: whether we can come tonight, whether it is first thing in the morning, or whether he cannot get there at all. If it is the last of those, you hear it immediately so you can ring another electrician while the evening is still young. Any business promising a fixed number of minutes across the whole the Bellarine is describing a call centre, not the person who will turn up.
Can our tenants ring you directly after hours?
Anyone can ring the number, and if it is genuinely dangerous we would rather a tenant rang than sat on it. What we will not do is authorise work off a tenant's say so. If a tenant calls, they get safety advice for the situation in front of them, and you get told what was said and what was recommended. Approval to attend and to spend money comes from your office or the owner, and the invoice follows the work order, never the tenant.
What if it turns out not to be an emergency once you are there?
You are told what it actually was, in writing, with photographs. Sometimes it is a faulty kettle and the property is fine. That call still costs, because someone drove out at night, and the rate you agreed on the phone is the rate that applies. It is not wasted, though. Knowing that a circuit trips only when a particular appliance is running is a real diagnosis, and it usually stops the same call happening next week.
Do you cover the whole the Bellarine after hours?
The service area is the same at night as it is during the day, which is a short drive from Ocean Grove, taking in Barwon Heads, Point Lonsdale, Portarlington, St Leonards and Queenscliff. The full list is on the service areas page. Distance is one of the things weighed up on the call, and it will be part of the honest answer about whether tonight is realistic.
The tenant says the power keeps tripping. Is that an after hours job?
It depends on what is behind it. If part of the property still has power, nothing smells hot and nothing is sparking, the safe move is to unplug whatever was running when it tripped, leave the safety switch off, and book it for the morning. If the whole property is dark, the main switch will not stay on, or there is any smell or sound of arcing, ring that night. Tell us what the tenant said word for word and you will get a straight answer either way.
Ring and you will get a straight answer
Tell us the property, what the tenant has reported and whether anything is hot, sparking or wet. You will be told on that call whether we can get there, and if we cannot you will be told immediately.