Storm Season Electrical Prep for Gold Coast Homes: What to Do Before It Hits

Byron Knight, Licensed Electrical Contractor

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Gold Coast & SEQ · Updated September 2026

Everyone on the Gold Coast prepares for storms the same way: when the sky goes green, they bring the cushions in.

That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s the wrong end of the problem. The electrical work that actually protects a house takes a booking, a visit and sometimes a part, and none of that is available at 4pm on a Thursday when a warning has just gone out. This covers what’s worth doing now, while nothing is happening, and what genuinely belongs on the day-of list.

Season prep and storm-day prep are different jobs

Almost all storm advice collapses these together, which is why it reads as a long list nobody completes.

Season prep is condition work: is your safety switch actually functional, is the switchboard sound, is the outdoor equipment weatherproof, do you know how to isolate your solar. It needs doing once, before the weather turns, and then it holds for the year.

Storm-day prep is a five-minute routine: unplug the sensitive gear, know where the torch is. It only works if the condition work is already done. A safety switch you’ve never tested doesn’t become reliable because a storm is coming.

This post is the first list. For what to do once the power is actually out, what to do during a power outage on the Gold Coast covers the during-and-after side.

The season list: do these while nothing is happening

1. Test the safety switch, properly. Queensland’s Electrical Safety Office is direct about this: install a safety switch and test it regularly. Pressing the test button should cut power immediately. If it doesn’t, or you don’t have one, that’s the single highest-value thing on this list.
2. Know where and how to turn the power off. Not in an emergency, now. Find the main switch, and make sure whoever else lives there can find it too.
3. Get the switchboard assessed if it’s old or coastal. Storms find weaknesses that already existed. A board that’s corroded, full, or still running rewireable fuses is one that handles a rough night badly. Coastal switchboards corrode faster here for reasons worth understanding.
4. Look at the outdoor points and fittings. Cracked covers, perished seals and rusted screws are how water gets into places it shouldn’t. Salt air does most of that damage long before a storm finishes the job.
5. Learn your solar shutdown. Covered below, and it’s the step most Gold Coast owners have never been shown.
6. Consider surge protection at the board. Also below, including what it won’t do.

None of that is dramatic. All of it is the difference between a storm being an inconvenience and a storm being a repair bill.

Surge protection: what it does, and what it doesn’t

Surge protection gets sold as insurance against lightning, which oversells it in one direction and undersells it in another.

What it handles well is the everyday reality: voltage spikes arriving through the supply when the network switches, when a transformer is hit some streets away, or when power is restored after an outage. That last one matters more than people expect, because restoration surges are common and they arrive when every appliance in the house is still switched on.

What no domestic device will save you from is a direct strike on your own roof. That’s a different order of energy. Anyone promising otherwise is overselling.

Board-level protection and point-of-use protection do different jobs, and they work best together rather than as alternatives. Neither replaces unplugging genuinely irreplaceable equipment when a storm is close. If you want the mechanism rather than the marketing, what actually causes a power surge explains where they come from.

The solar shutdown most owners have never been shown

Rooftop solar is close to standard on the Gold Coast, and most owners have never touched their system since the day it went on.

WorkSafe Queensland’s storm season guidance includes shutting down a solar PV system using the safe isolation procedure — a specific sequence, in a specific order, not simply flicking the main switch. The order matters, and your system’s procedure should be documented on or near the inverter.

Two things follow from that. Find the procedure now, while there’s no weather and no hurry, and photograph it so it’s on your phone. And if the array, inverter or a battery system takes damage, WorkSafe is explicit that a licensed electrical contractor has to inspect and repair it. A damaged array can still be generating even when everything else in the house is dead, which is exactly why it isn’t a look-and-see situation.

When a storm is actually coming

Short list, because the real work is behind you.

• Switch off and unplug sensitive equipment at the power point — Energex specifically names televisions and computers
• Unplug outside TV aerials and non-fixed aerials and store them dry
• Pack away and store electrical equipment that’s outside and not in use
• Charge phones and any battery backup, particularly if anyone in the house relies on life-support equipment
• Have a torch that isn’t your phone

If the power goes out, turn your power points off and unplug equipment. That protects against the surge when supply comes back, which is the part people forget because by then the storm has passed and it feels over.

After the storm: the two that actually kill people

Most post-storm electrical advice is about protecting appliances. These two are about protecting people, and they’re worth stating plainly.

Water-damaged equipment is the quieter risk. Using it can cause shocks and fires, and the guidance is to dispose of affected items or have a licensed electrician repair them. That includes hardwired things people don’t think of as appliances — air conditioners and stoves among them. An item that got wet and now appears to work is not evidence that it’s safe; it’s evidence that the fault hasn’t found you yet.

Fallen or damaged powerlines are an emergency, not a hazard to photograph. Stay well away and report them on 000 or 13 19 62. To report an outage, Energex runs 13 62 62 around the clock. If you’re unsure whether what you’re looking at counts, what counts as an electrical emergency makes the call easier.

Getting reconnected when there’s damage

This is the part that catches people out after a bad night, and it’s worth knowing before you need it.

Where a property’s electrical installation has been damaged, it doesn’t simply get switched back on. A licensed electrician has to test the switchboard, wiring, equipment and appliances, and the resulting certificate of test is what allows the distributor to reconnect the service. Energex restoring power to the street doesn’t automatically mean power to a damaged house.

Which is why the queue matters. After a significant storm, every electrician on the coast is booked, and the houses that get sorted first are the ones whose owners called early and knew what to ask for. If your place has taken water near the switchboard or lost part of its service, that’s an emergency electrician call rather than something to sit on.

Why Gold Coast homes cop it worse

Three things stack up here that don’t apply everywhere.

Salt air has usually been working on outdoor electrical equipment for years before a storm arrives. Through Palm Beach, Mermaid Beach and Currumbin, corroded enclosures and perished seals are common, and a corroded seal is simply a slower version of a cracked one.

Tree cover on the older established streets is heavier than in the newer estates. More canopy near the service line means more chance of a branch taking out the supply to a single property rather than the whole street — and a single-property fault is yours to sort, not the network’s.

And the western suburbs on larger blocks, out through Mudgeeraba and Tallai, tend to sit further down the line with longer private runs, sheds and pumps. More exposed infrastructure per property means more that can be damaged, and more to check afterwards.