Safe entry to your property

Occasionally, we may need to enter your home or business premises to maintain our energy network or read your meter. To help our field staff, please make sure your home or business is safe.

Unfortunately, if we can’t access your property safely, we might not be able to complete our work. This includes being able to confirm you have ‘suitably restrained’ your dog (see below).

How to make your property safe

When you know we’re coming, there are a few steps you can take before we arrive so we can do our job quickly and safely.

You can help us by:

• Registering your dog with us
• Keeping your dogs ‘suitably restrained’ (see below)
• Telling us about any special access to your land or our equipment
• Updating your site access account/premises details with your electricity retailer
• Providing safe and clear access to our equipment by making sure:
  • Any locks you use to secure your gate or other property access point are authorised by us (see Ergon locks below)
  • Your meter is clear of vegetation, insects, vehicles and other equipment
  • You arrange to have your meter box moved if it has become inaccessible.

For more information on our safe entry practices please call us.

How to make sure your dog is visibly ‘suitably restrained’

Unrestrained dogs are always a hazard for our field staff. They can cause bites, injuries and also create distractions while workers are carrying out sensitive electrical work. Therefore, we won’t enter your property unless you are home to confirm your dog is restrained, or we can visibly see that it is.

By suitably restrained we mean:

• Your dog is locked securely inside the house or other suitable building (i.e. placed inside the premise without a means of escape)
• Your dog is in a yard or area that’s completely separated from where we will be working (i.e. locked behind a fence without the means of escape)
• Your dog is isolated by a substantial rope or chain, well secured to an anchor point on the ground or fixed fitting.

Please note that holding the dog by the collar, by hand, or in your arms, is not a ‘suitable restraint’.

Under our safe entry practices, our field workers won’t be able to enter your premises unless they can visibly sight your dog to make sure you’ve 'suitably restrained' it. Despite best endeavours we may still be unable to access your premise for a number of reasons following a site specific risk assessment, if our staff member or contractor does not feel that it is safe to enter. This final discretion rests with the meter reader or crew member.

Don’t forget to check your dog has access to water, food and shade while they’re restrained.

How much notice will you give me?

We’ll do our best to let you know when we’re planning to visit your property. However, the amount of notice we can give will depend on the type of work we need to do.

Meter read notices and alerts

You can find your next scheduled read date on your electricity bill. We’ll be there to read your meters within two business days before or after the date listed.

If you own a dog, you can sign up for our meter-read alerts for dog owners. Then, we’ll be able to send you an SMS and/or email notification 24 hours before we come.

You could consider installing a smart meter , as it can be read remotely and we won't need to enter your property to physically read your meter. Talk to your electricity retailer about getting a smart meter installed.

Notice for other work

In many other cases, we won’t be able to give you notice ahead of our visit. This includes for network inspections and emergency works.

However, there’s no cause for concern. If we can’t access your property, we’ll leave a notice card. This card will tell you who you should call to make further arrangements, us or your electricity retailer.

Why we might enter your property

To keep you connected to a strong, uninterrupted power supply, we might need to enter your premises from time to time. This could be to:

• Inspect or read electricity meters
• Identify the location and cause of a fault, and repair it (during power outages)
• Complete maintenance or upgrade works on our equipment located on or near your land
• Inspect our poles, overhead or underground powerlines, transformers or other electrical equipment located on your land
• Check or clear vegetation from around powerlines on or near your premises
• Assess the need for possible future network infrastructure, with prior consent
• To complete work requested by your electrical contractor or electricity retailer.

IMPORTANT: Although we have legal permission to enter private property to complete most of these tasks, you have the right to confirm our workers’ identities. Simply ask to see their employee ID.

Need more information?