The wires that carry electricity into your home from the street are usually insulated “service wires” (low voltage = less than 1,000kv) and there must be a minimum 300mm radius clearance between any vegetation and the wire. 

While that is a minimum, often a greater distance should be maintained to allow for vegetation movement in the wind or vegetation dropping under the weight of rain. Keeping vegetation clear of these wires is the responsibility of the home owner and professional arborists should be engaged to conduct these works. 

Ideally, tall trees should not be planted under service wires but if there is an existing tall tree close to the service lines, pruning should be undertaken to direct the tree’s growth away from the lines.

Lopping should not be done, as this may result in poor tree health and more vegetation growing towards the line.

Case Study

Rob has recently moved into a leafy street near Blackburn Lake. He has discovered that the previous owner allowed several gum trees to grow quite close to the powerline taking electricity from the street to the house. 

Rob calls an arborist to come and have a look. Rob has used this arborist before and knows he will do a good job. 

The arborist suggests removing two branches from the largest gum tree that are growing towards the line. Because there are lots of healthy branches higher up in the tree canopy, the removal of these two lower limbs won’t cause the tree to become stressed.

A smaller gum tree is growing right below the line.  Because its girth is less than 0.5m at 1m above the ground, the arborist says that it can be removed without a permit and this will reduce problems in the future. 

Rob decides to go ahead with these works and because he wants to maintain the leafy character of his new home, he plants a new gum tree right in the middle of his front yard where it will be able to grow tall away from the lines.