The Story of Lightning Bult

Early years: 1987 and the first push into work

It's February 1987 and I’d just finished my HSC at Freshwater High.

I had no plan, no direction, and absolutely no concern about either of those things. I was too busy being 18 — which is to say, spectacularly confident for no valid reason. The kind of confidence that only exists when you haven’t yet been introduced to consequences

• INXS - Listen like thieves
• Crowded house - Crowded house
• Hunters and Collectors - Human Frailty

Have all just been released

I'm blissfully riding my dad’s motorbike around town, loving life after school — which I did not enjoy at all.

Then one day in February Dad says “You need to get a job by the end of February or I’m taking the bike back.”

I loved that motorbike and I would have taken any job that came along but I was not about to let that bike go.

(BTW its a life long sickness and I'm still absolutely obsessed with motorbikes to this day)

1995: Lightning Bult is born

In 1995 I finished my apprenticeship and soon after Lightning Bult was born.

In the beginning, I worked by myself, subcontracting to larger companies

Slowly doing my own jobs and using casual labour from time to time as needed.

Over the first 20 years I made many mistakes in every business discipline. We grew, scaled back, and grew again. We completed thousands of office and shop fitouts and built a strong reputation along the way.

I had always provided great customer service and a high level of workmanship.

Expansion into plumbing, air conditioning, and pool heating

Around about 2015 I pivoted into residential work and along the way we started getting a lot of requests for plumbing services.

“Ahh, how hard can it be to take on a whole new trade that you know absolutely nothing about?” I thought to myself

Very bloody hard, as it turns out.

However we got there in the end, and now plumbing is part of the daily routine. Air-conditioning and pool heating came soon after, because apparently once you’ve decided to make life difficult, you might as well go all in.

Lightning Bult today

Today, in 2026, 30 years down the track, we are a true multi-trade company running jobs in all four departments every day.

We are not “A jack of all trades” we are a team of licensed tradespeople who work together to provide our customers with convenience and excellent customer service everyday

In all that time, here’s what’s worth talking about:

• No major workplace injuries
• No insurance claims from damaging customer property
• No trips to Fair Trading
• No legal issues with customers, staff, or authorities
• No licence problems
• Survived recessions and everything in between
• Solved thousands of problems — most of them the hard way

That’s not luck. That’s consistency. And a refusal to cut corners.

I'm proud of how far we’ve come.

Proud of the team we've built and proud that after 30 years, the values are still the same: great service, quality workmanship, and doing the job properly.