Hampton asks two different things of an electrician. In the north of the suburb, the Castlefield heritage precinct takes in about 25 hectares of streets around Castlefield Reserve, where a charger on the wrong wall can need a planning permit. Around the station, planning controls updated in March 2026 make room for more homes, including mixed-use buildings with basement car parking. So EV charger installation Hampton jobs come in two quite different shapes, and occasionally both turn up on the same block.
DUKE EV is the charging business within DUKE Electrical Group, registered in Victoria as an electrical contractor under REC 35838. The team travels from DUKE’s Brighton premises at 99 Bay St, a straight-line distance of about 4 km to the centre of Hampton. Chargers can be supplied by us or by your car dealer; either way we fit them, and we handle any switchboard or supply upgrades the job needs.
EV charger installation Hampton: three homes, three different jobs
The 2021 Census counted 62.0% of Hampton’s occupied homes as separate houses, 22.7% as semi-detached houses or townhouses, and 14.2% as flats or apartments. Only 5.6% of households had no car, while 40.5% had two and 16.1% had three or more. Each housing type sends the job in a different direction.
| Home | Where the car usually lives | What decides the job |
|---|---|---|
| House in a heritage precinct | Driveway, garage or carport beside or behind the house | Whether the charger can be seen from the street, and the cable route from a front meter box |
| Townhouse or unit | Single garage or carport, sometimes off a shared driveway | Lot boundaries, any common property, and space on a smaller switchboard |
| Apartment | Basement or ground-level car park | Owners corporation approval, spare capacity in the building’s supply, and how charging is metered |
The middle row deserves a word first. Picture a block of four units on a shared driveway, with the meters grouped in one cabinet near the street and the carports at the far end. Your switchboard may be inside your own unit, but the cable from it to your carport can still cross common property, and that needs the owners corporation’s agreement even for a small job. We map the route against the title plan before quoting and keep it inside your lot wherever the layout allows. Unit switchboards are often compact, so we also check for spare space before you settle on a charger.
The first and third rows are where Hampton differs most from other suburbs, so the rest of this page concentrates on them.
Heritage streets: Castlefield, Hampton Street and Orlando Street
Hampton’s heritage precincts in the planning scheme are Castlefield, Hampton Street and Orlando Street. Castlefield is the big one. The Hampton Street Precinct covers part of the shopping strip around the library, and the Orlando Street Precinct sits just west of it. More than 30 individually listed places are scattered through the suburb too, with clusters on Linacre Road, Service Street, Gordon Street and Hampton Street.
For chargers, one sentence in Clause 43.01 of the Bayside Planning Scheme does the work. Its trigger is visibility. If a passer-by on a street, or someone in a public park, can see the charging station, a permit is needed; if only a laneway has a view of it, that trigger does not apply. The application is a VicSmart class, the state’s faster stream for minor works, and it skips the public notice process altogether.
Bayside’s own heritage policy points the same way. It asks for carports and garages to sit behind the front façade, for new crossovers to be avoided, and for ancillary services to be concealed from the street. EV chargers are not named in it, but a wall box is the same kind of visible service, so we treat it that way.
So we work through the decision in this order:
- Confirm whether the property is in a Heritage Overlay, either a precinct or an individual listing.
- Look for a wall that no street or public park overlooks.
- If no such position works, lodge a VicSmart application before anything is installed.
- Install, test and certify once the position is settled.
We would argue the permit is rarely worth chasing. There is often a garage wall, a carport post or a side return the street cannot see, and that is where we start the conversation.
Older Hampton houses: from the meter box to the car
In an older house the meter box often sits at the front and the car lives at the side or back, so the new circuit has a distance to travel. We look at three routes: through the roof space, under a suspended timber floor, or along the outside of the house in a protected conduit. The roof is usually tidiest. Subfloor runs suit houses with good crawl space. External conduit is the last resort on a heritage house, because it is the one a planner can see.
The switchboard decides the rest. If yours has spare space and modern protection, the charger circuit goes straight in with a Type A or Type B RCD; Type AC devices have not been permitted in new work since 1 May 2023. If the board is full, or still relies on old fuses, our switchboard upgrade for EV charging comes first. Replacing a main switchboard is prescribed electrical work, so it must pass an inspection by an independent Licensed Electrical Inspector before the power goes back on.
Some owners ask whether a power point would do instead. United Energy’s EV charging guidance suggests trickle charging from a regular outlet suits drivers covering up to about 200 km a week, with a dedicated charger recommended for 200 to 500 km. It also warns against household adaptors and daisy-chained extension leads. If you are on the edge of those figures, a properly installed wall charger is the safer long-term answer, and the home EV charger installation in Melbourne guide compares the options.
Apartments near the station and the March 2026 planning changes
Hampton is one of the Victorian Government’s Train and Tram Zone activity centres. Amendment GC270, gazetted on 31 March 2026, added a Built Form Overlay for the Hampton Train and Tram Zone Activity Centre and applied the Housing Choice and Transport Zone to its catchment, with the stated aim of new homes near the station. Bayside’s Hampton Street policy also supports redeveloping the Willis Street Precinct and the railway car park as mixed-use development with basement car parking, and the Railway Crescent station car park for housing.
New apartment buildings come under the National Construction Code’s EV-ready provisions. Car parks must have distribution boards dedicated to EV charging, linked to a charging control system, and in apartment buildings the circuits must support a charger delivering at least 12 kWh between 11pm and 7am. Chargers themselves do not have to be fitted from the outset, which is where we come in later.
Older blocks are a different story. The owners corporation controls what happens to common property, and anything that significantly alters how that property is used or looks has to clear the 75% special resolution threshold set by the Owners Corporations Act 2006. Our apartment and strata EV charging service starts by checking how much capacity the building’s main switchboard and supply have left, which gives the committee real numbers to vote on rather than guesses. For a block of a dozen or so car spaces, the answer is usually a dedicated EV distribution board, a meter for each charger, and load management that shares the building’s spare capacity across the night.
Registration, certificates and what you keep on file
On United Energy’s network, a wall charger must be installed by a REC and then logged in the myEnergy portal, and we take care of both steps. At the end you get a Certificate of Electrical Safety covering the work, which is worth keeping with the house papers. If a supply upgrade is involved, the paperwork and the network appointment are handled by us too.
Price depends on the cable route, the state of the switchboard, whether the supply is single or three-phase, any network approval and the charger you choose. We itemise those so you can see which one is driving the number.
Frequently asked questions about EV chargers in Hampton
Does a charger on my Castlefield house need a planning permit?
Only where the charger would be on view from a street or a public park. Heritage Overlay properties, including those in the Castlefield, Hampton Street and Orlando Street precincts, need a VicSmart permit for a visible charger. A wall box seen only from a laneway, or hidden in a garage, falls outside that trigger.
Is there a public charger near the Hampton Street shops?
Bayside City Council’s EV charger project page lists Mills Street, beside 486 Hampton Street, as a planned site with one charging bay. That page is now archived, so check with Council for the site’s current status. A public fast charger is useful for top-ups, but it is no substitute for charging at home overnight.
Our apartment block has no charging at all. Where do we start?
Start with a capacity assessment of the building’s electricity supply and main board, then take a proposal to the owners corporation. Shared infrastructure that serves every car space usually works out better than a string of one-off circuits.
Can I keep using a normal power point for now?
For low weekly distances, yes, provided it is a suitable outlet and you avoid adaptors and extension leads. United Energy’s own guidance puts the cut-off at about 200 km a week before a dedicated charger makes more sense.
How far away is your team?
The crew is based at DUKE’s Brighton premises, 99 Bay St, about 4 km from central Hampton. Our Brighton EV charger installation page has more about that base.
Whether you are in a house in the Castlefield precinct or an apartment near the station, the first step is the same: a site visit to see the switchboard, the meter box and where the car sleeps. Ring 1300 003 853 any weekday or Saturday from 7am to 7pm, or use our contact page; we follow up with a written, itemised quote. Further down Beach Road, our guide to EV charger installation in Sandringham explains how owners corporation votes, heritage listings and salt air shape a charger install there.