Parts of Kew East were laid out for the motor car long before anyone talked about plugging one in. Between the 1920s and the 1950s the streets around Windella Avenue and the old Boulevard Estate filled with bungalows, garages and strip driveways, and a heritage statement in the Boroondara Planning Scheme describes part of the suburb as post-war development “built around cars”. That history still shapes EV charger installation Kew East work. Our A-grade electricians travel out from 128 Toorak Rd in South Yarra, about 8 km away, and most of what we sort out here involves old garages, long driveways and which of two electricity networks a house is connected to.
A suburb planned around the car, decades before the EV
The electric tram reached Burke Road, Kew East in 1925, and the line between the city and Kew was fully electrified in 1927. The council’s heritage statements credit that tram extension with the interwar suburban growth that followed. In the Windella Avenue and Environs Precinct, which takes in Windella Avenue, Birdwood, Minto and Hale streets and parts of Belford and Kilby roads, the streets were laid out between about 1910 and 1926 and most houses went up between about 1920 and 1942. Timber and brick bungalows sit alongside Old English revival and Moderne designs.
Further east, the Boulevard Estate and Environs Precinct around Munro Street and Old Burke Road was built out through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Its statement of significance points to an unusually high number of properties that keep original or early front fences, concrete paths, parallel strip driveways and garages.
The 2021 Census fills in the rest. Of occupied homes in Kew East, 66.3% were separate houses, and 59.6% had two or more registered vehicles. So many charging jobs here start with a house that already has somewhere off the street to park. The catch is distance. A garage at the end of a strip driveway can sit a long way from the meter box at the front of the house.
CitiPower or Jemena: confirming the network first
When we ran Kew East through the CitiPower postcode network locator, it returned two distributors for 3102: CitiPower and Jemena. The tool works by postcode, not by street, so it can’t say which network your house is on.
For a standard home charger added to an existing supply, that rarely changes the job. We found no separate approval step for it on CitiPower’s EV page, and no home-charger connection page on Jemena’s site, as at October 2026. The network matters as soon as the supply itself has to change. On CitiPower’s network, only a registered electrical contractor can lodge an alteration application (through its eConnect portal), and CitiPower puts most of those jobs at three to eight weeks. Jemena’s alterations FAQ treats a move from single-phase to three-phase as an alteration, while a change to the point of supply, such as a new pole, becomes a new connection.
So before anything is lodged, we confirm which network your property is actually connected to. It avoids sending paperwork to the wrong distributor.
EV charger installation Kew East: what we check on the first visit
Every site visit covers the same ground, roughly in this order.
- The switchboard. We look at the main switch rating, spare space and the age of the board. A full or outdated board means the job starts with a switchboard upgrade for the charger circuit.
- Safety switch type. Since 1 May 2023, Type AC safety switches can’t go into new work anywhere in Australia, so the charger circuit gets a Type A or Type B device chosen to suit the charger’s own DC fault detection.
- The cable route. Expect 6 mm² cable for a typical 32 A single-phase charger, and heavier cable on a long run. On a deep block with a rear garage, the route is often the biggest variable in the quote: under the floor, along a fence line or in a trench beside the driveway.
- The car. Its onboard charger caps AC charging speed. A Polestar 2, for example, tops out at 11 kW on AC (three-phase, 16 A), so a 22 kW wall unit gains it nothing.
- Solar. If there are panels on the roof, we look at the inverter and whether a solar-aware charger makes sense.
In the Boulevard Estate, where the heritage statement singles out original strip driveways, we plan routes that leave the old strips alone. Cutting and patching them would change the appearance of a heritage place, and that is a permit trigger of its own under the overlay.
Original garages, front fences and the Heritage Overlay
On our count from Vicmap’s planning layers, a little under a tenth of Kew East’s land is covered by a Heritage Overlay, mostly across four precincts: the Boulevard Estate, the Oswin Street precinct around Oswin and Namur streets and Irymple Avenue, Windella Avenue, and the Harp Village shops on High Street, Strathalbyn Street and Valerie Street. Kew East Primary School on Windella Avenue and the former Kew Fire Station on Belford Road are listed in their own right.
The overlay’s trigger for chargers, in Clause 43.01-1, is narrow: a planning permit is needed only when the charging station can be seen from a street (lanes don’t count) or a public park. Those applications go through VicSmart, and neighbours aren’t notified. A charger on the inside wall of a garage is normally out of view, so it doesn’t trigger the overlay at all.
That makes the original garages the natural home for a charger. They’re dry, out of sight, and the car already lives there. What we check is the clear width beside the car and where its charging port sits, so the lead reaches without being dragged across the floor. Council’s local heritage policy also asks that vehicle accommodation and services do not dominate heritage places, which is a good reason to keep chargers off the front of a contributory house.
One car or two: sizing the charger
CitiPower’s guide puts a 7 kW single-phase wall charger at roughly 30 to 40 km of added range per hour of charging. Over eight hours overnight, that works out at roughly 240 to 320 km. A 22 kW charger needs three-phase power, and CitiPower notes it is not suitable for all customers.
There’s a limit on the network side too. The Victorian Service and Installation Rules give advisory figures for single-phase switched loads, and a 32 A charger sits above them, so before a 32 A unit goes onto a single-phase supply, we confirm what your network will accept.
Our view, for what it’s worth: most Kew East homes with one EV don’t need three-phase. A second EV, or a car that can take 11 kW on AC, is where a three-phase power upgrade for EV charging starts to earn its keep, usually paired with load management so two chargers share the supply sensibly.
From first call to first charge
- Start by sending pictures of the meter box, the switchboard and the garage, or ring us to talk it through.
- One of our electricians visits, checks the board and the cable route, and looks the address up on VicPlan for overlays.
- We confirm whether the house is on CitiPower or Jemena and, if the supply has to change, lodge the alteration request.
- If the charger will be visible from a street or park inside a Heritage Overlay, the VicSmart application goes in before work starts.
- We install the charger and its circuit, then run the mandatory tests, including the operation of the safety switch.
- We hand over a Certificate of Electrical Safety. Where the job includes prescribed work, a new main switchboard for instance, a Licensed Electrical Inspector has to check it before the power goes on.
Energy Safe Victoria explains that paperwork in its consumer guide to Certificates of Electrical Safety. If you already own a charger, perhaps one supplied with the car, we install that too and the steps don’t change. More on the service itself is on our home EV charger installation page for Melbourne.
Frequently asked questions about EV chargers in Kew East
Is my Kew East house on the CitiPower or Jemena network?
It could be either. CitiPower’s postcode locator lists both networks for 3102 without dividing the suburb, so we check which one serves your address before lodging anything. For a straightforward charger on your existing supply, it usually makes no practical difference.
Is the front of the house an option in the Windella Avenue precinct?
We’d advise against it. A charger on the front wall would almost certainly be seen from the street, which needs a planning permit under the Heritage Overlay, and council’s heritage policy asks that services not dominate heritage places. The garage or a side wall out of view avoids both; if a visible spot really is the only option, it goes in as a VicSmart application, without notice to neighbours.
Can the charger go in the old garage at the end of the driveway?
Usually, yes. The real questions are cable size and route. A long run from the meter box can need heavier cable than the usual 6 mm², and in the Boulevard Estate we route around the original driveway strips rather than through them.
Is there a public charger in Kew East itself?
Not on the council’s public charging list for Boroondara as of October 2026. The nearest site on that list is Kew Junction, where Evie Networks runs two chargers at 14 Fenton Way, Kew.
Do you have an office in Kew East?
No. Kew East is served from 128 Toorak Rd, South Yarra, about 8 km away; details of that base are on our South Yarra location page. Homes just across Burke Road are covered on our Balwyn North charger installation page.
If your Kew East home has a garage, a driveway, or just a power point and a plan, tell us what you drive and we’ll ask for a photo of the switchboard. You can book a quote through our contact page or call 1300 003 853, Monday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm. We hold REC 35838, a Victorian registration.