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A planned short power outage for residents of a Perth street turned into days without electricity and damaged home appliances.
Residents of the northern suburb of Heathridge have described "popping, fizzing and smelling smoke" after a suspected power surge caused widespread damage to households.
Affected resident Alice, whose surname has been withheld for privacy reasons, said they were notified two weeks ahead of the planned power outage in their area.
"When I left at seven o'clock in the morning to go to work, we got a text message saying the power was out, and then I got another one around one o'clock saying the power was back on," Alice told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth.
"Then I got another message around 1:45 that said the power had gone back out again and they didn't know when it would be restored."
She said a transformer was being replaced.
"My neighbours said that they were at home when the power got turned back on and then they heard fizzing and popping and smelled smoke," she said.
Alice said a Western Power worker came later that afternoon and took the fuses out of her meter box, saying "there was an issue with the transformer and that the damage was catastrophic and we could be without power for days".
It wasn't until the power was restored that she realised a number of her home appliances no longer worked, including an air-conditioner, TV and range hood.
"We also have neighbours who had a light globe explode and another neighbour had a heated blanket on and apparently it caught fire," she said.
Alice said she had been told she could submit a claim to Western Power to replace her damaged appliances, which she estimated would cost more than $6,000.
Western Power executive manager of asset operations Zane Christmas said what happened in Heathridge last week was a serious incident that resulted from routine maintenance.
"We were doing a transformer upgrade," Mr Christmas said.
"It's one of hundreds that we would do every year and essentially to improve the reliability and standard of supply that we aspire to for our customers.
"Upon commissioning, we became aware that there was an issue on the network and obviously very quickly switched it off."
Western Power and safety regulator Building and Energy have started investigating the incident.
"Clearly something has gone wrong there," Mr Christmas said.
Zane Christmas says the outage was a rare occurrence. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
Mr Christmas said the Heathridge incident was a "very rare" occurrence.
"We would do hundreds of these transformer upgrades a year," he said.
"This is a program that we do yearly and it's intended to ensure that we're ready for summer and we're able to handle the loads in the area, really with the intent to ensure our community has a reliable supply.
"So when something like this goes wrong, it's something we take really seriously."
He said Western Power would cover the costs to affected households, including paying for electricians to reconnect their electricity supply and for damaged appliances.
"Western Power has already covered costs in some cases and would for anybody that hasn't submitted their invoices yet, so they definitely won't be out of pocket for that," he said.
"In addition to that, any damaged equipment, we encourage customers to submit their claims and we'll manage those as a priority."