Richmond is one of Melbourne's densest and most characterful suburbs — Victorian and Edwardian terraces packed tightly along narrow streets, interspersed with 1960s–70s flats, converted warehouses, and a growing commercial and hospitality strip. The electrical demands here are varied: heritage homes with original wiring that needs careful replacement, apartments requiring switchboard upgrades to handle EV chargers and induction cooktops, and commercial tenancies that need compliant fit-outs with minimal disruption to trading.
Millar Electrics is based in Nunawading, about 25 minutes from Richmond — but there's history here for us. Our founder, David Millar, was based in the inner east before the business moved out east, and Richmond and Cremorne were home turf. The terraces and the warehouse fit-outs along Swan and Church Streets are the kind of work he cut his teeth on, and we've kept the inner east on the books ever since. A Richmond job goes to a crew that already knows what's behind a worker's-cottage wall, not someone treating it as a long drive across town.
The defining Richmond job is the terrace rewire. A lot of these cottages still carry rubber-sheathed wiring that's gone brittle with age — a genuine fire and shock risk once the insulation starts cracking — and replacing it without tearing into heritage plaster means working through existing cavities and the party-wall void between neighbours. Switchboards are often crammed into a narrow entrance vestibule with no room to grow, so we plan the upgrade around the space there is. EV charging is its own puzzle on streets with no off-street parking: where there's a garage or a stacked spot we sort the capacity, and where there isn't we talk through the realistic options rather than promise something the kerb won't allow.
Common electrical work in Richmond
- Full rewires for Victorian and Edwardian terraces — cavity-run cabling to protect heritage plasterwork
- Switchboard upgrades for terraces and apartments with ageing fuse boards
- EV charger installation in garages and stacked parking — including switchboard capacity assessment
- Commercial fit-outs for offices, retail, and hospitality premises in the Church Street and Swan Street corridors
- LED lighting upgrades for residential and commercial tenancies
- Safety switch and RCD installation for rental properties meeting Victoria's compliance obligations
Richmond and Cremorne
Cremorne's warehouse conversions and tech-office fit-outs are a regular part of our commercial work — this area typically needs higher-capacity three-phase supply, structured data cabling, and emergency lighting compliance. All commercial work includes a Certificate of Electrical Safety lodged with Energy Safe Victoria and is backed by our $20M public liability insurance.
About Richmond
Richmond sits in Yarra City Council, with Bridge Road, Swan Street and Church Street forming three distinct commercial spines, the MCG and AAMI Park just across the river to the west, and the Cremorne tech-office precinct anchoring the suburb's southern industrial heritage. The housing stock is dense and varied — Victorian and Edwardian workers' terraces along the original grid, 1960s and 70s walk-up flats interspersed through the residential streets, and converted warehouse and apartment buildings throughout. Richmond and Cremorne share the Yarra City Council jurisdiction and we're in both regularly. The terrace housing stock here regularly presents with original wiring buried in cavity walls between party-line neighbours, switchboards installed in narrow entrance vestibules, and EV chargers requiring on-street or shared-parking accommodation. Heritage rewiring with sensitive cable routing is a consistent job type; commercial fit-outs along the Church Street and Cremorne corridors are the other common ask.