Warranties on antenna work in WA, and what to do if it fails
Three separate things protect a Bunbury antenna install, and they run for different lengths of time. The manufacturer covers the hardware, typically 1 to 5 years. The installer covers the work: ours is 5 years, in writing. Underneath both sit the Australian Consumer Law guarantees, which have no fixed expiry and apply automatically to anything bought for under $100,000. If something fails, put it in writing, give 14 days, then escalate.
Most people only read a warranty after something has already gone wrong, which is the worst possible time to discover that the antenna, the amplifier, the bracket and the labour are all covered by different parties for different periods. This page sets out who covers what on a Bunbury antenna job, which Western Australian framework actually applies, exactly what to send and when, and where the honest line sits between a defect somebody owes you and fair wear on a coastal roof.
Who covers what, and for how long
Every line of an antenna installation sits under one of these. Typical durations are what the market actually offers in 2026; the exact figure for your job belongs on your invoice.
| What | Who covers it | How long | What it covers | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antenna head or phased array | Manufacturer, claimed through the installer | Typically 1 - 5 years | Manufacturing defect: a failed balun, a broken weld, elements that separate or an internal open circuit | Corrosion beyond any stated coastal limit, storm impact, bird damage, a branch through it |
| Masthead amplifier and power injector | Manufacturer | Typically 1 - 3 years | Electronic failure, dead or noisy output, power supply failure | Lightning surge, or water ingress after somebody else has opened the housing |
| Mast, brackets and fixings | Manufacturer, in practice the installer | 1 year typical on the product | Coating failure or a manufacturing fault in the steel or the casting | Normal marine wear past the stated life of the coating |
| Coax, connectors, splitters, wall plates | The installer | Our 5 year workmanship warranty | Water ingress at a connector we made, a splitter we supplied that fails, a plate we fitted coming loose | Damage from a later renovation, a solar install, or anyone else working in the roof space |
| TV wall bracket | Manufacturer | Commonly 5 - 10 years, load rated | Bracket failure within its stated load rating | A screen heavier than the rating, or a substrate we warned you about in writing |
| Our workmanship | Us | 5 years, in writing | Aim, mounting, sealing, earth bond, cable routes, terminations and tuning | Storm damage, a tree that has grown into the path, third party changes, broadcaster outages |
| Property damage during the job | Our public liability insurance | At the time of the work | Cracked tiles, a foot through a ceiling, damage to a vehicle or a fence | Pre-existing defects photographed and reported to you before we started |
| Australian Consumer Law guarantees | The law, against whoever sold it | No fixed expiry: a reasonable time, judged case by case | Goods of acceptable quality and reasonable durability, services with due care and skill and fit for the stated purpose | Damage you caused, ordinary wear, or a change of mind |
Consumer guarantees apply automatically to goods and services bought for under $100,000 and cannot be signed away by a warranty document. A warranty adds to those rights, it never replaces them.
The steps in order, and how long to allow for each
Work down this list. Skipping a step almost always sends you back to it, because every body you can escalate to will ask what you put in writing and when.
| Step | What you do | Reasonable timeframe |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Contact the installer in writing | Email, not a phone call. Describe the symptom, when it started, which outlets are affected, and attach photos and the invoice. | Allow 5 business days for a reply and 10 to 15 business days to attend |
| 2. Send a formal defect notice | A dated notice naming the defect, the evidence, the remedy you want and a deadline. Reference the earlier email. | Give 14 days to respond or attend |
| 3. Claim on the manufacturer directly | Only if the fault is clearly the hardware and the installer has gone quiet or out of business. You will need the model and serial number and the original invoice. | Allow 20 to 30 days for assessment |
| 4. Insurance, where it is damage rather than defect | Storm, impact or lightning goes to your home insurer, not to a warranty. Photograph it before anything is touched. | Lodge as soon as you find it. Insurers expect prompt notification |
| 5. Consumer Protection WA | Lodge a consumer complaint with Consumer Protection in the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety for conciliation under the Australian Consumer Law. | Typically several weeks, longer where the trader does not engage |
| 6. Magistrates Court of Western Australia | A small claim for money you can quantify, as a last resort. Bring the quote, the invoice, the photos, the notices and the dates. | Months rather than weeks. Costs are usually not awarded in the minor case stream |
| 7. Regulator, where a licence was involved | Cabling connected to the telecommunications network is registered work and can be raised with the industry registrar. Mains electrical work goes to the WA electrical regulator. | Varies with the body and the seriousness |
Want a warranty you can actually read before you book?
Every quote we send names the scope, the hardware and the workmanship period in writing, before any money changes hands.
The Western Australian framework, named properly
The Australian Consumer Law, which is a schedule to the Commonwealth competition legislation, applies in Western Australia as state law. It is enforced here by Consumer Protection, a division of the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. That is the body you deal with for an antenna dispute, and it is the framework that gives you the consumer guarantees: goods of acceptable quality and reasonable durability, services carried out with due care and skill, and everything fit for the purpose you told the trader about.
Western Australia also has a separate building framework, administered through the Building Services legislation and the Home Building Contracts Act, which requires a written contract for residential building work above a set value and home indemnity insurance on residential building work above a higher value again. Those thresholds are real and they matter for a renovation or an extension. They do not reach an antenna job. Antenna installation is not registrable building work in this state and no antenna invoice comes close to either figure, so the building complaint pathway and the home indemnity scheme are simply not yours to use. Anybody quoting you who implies otherwise is confused about which system they are in.
Licensing works the same way. Antenna installation on its own is not a licensed trade in Western Australia. What is regulated is cabling connected to the telecommunications network, which requires ACMA cabler registration, and mains electrical work, which requires a WA electrical licence. Rooftop work carries a genuine duty under the WA work health and safety rules. The full picture, including AS 1417 and the cabling standards, is set out on the standards and compliance page.
What documentation to keep, and for how long
Every one of these has decided an argument at some point. Keep them together in one email folder or one envelope, for the longer of the warranty period and six years.
- The written quote, itemised. Not a total on a text message. The scope is what a warranty claim gets measured against, so the quote is the single most valuable document you own.
- The tax invoice with the ABN on it. Without it you have no proof of who did the work, and a manufacturer claim will not proceed.
- Product model and serial numbers. Photograph the labels on the antenna and the amplifier before they go up. This takes ten seconds on the day and is impossible afterwards.
- The certificate of currency for public liability insurance. Ask for it before the job, not after something is broken.
- Photos of the finished install. The mast and bracket, the rooftop connector, the earth bond and the wall plate. Take them yourself at handover.
- The metered readings at each outlet. A signal level and quality figure per outlet on the day is your baseline. Without it, an argument about whether performance has degraded is two people guessing.
- The written workmanship warranty. A period in years, on paper or in an email, naming what it covers.
- Any email where the installer described what they would do. Statements made before the sale count under the consumer guarantees, so a promise in an email is worth keeping.
What a defect notice should say
A defect notice is not a legal document and it does not need legal language. It needs to be dated, factual and specific, because its job is to start a clock that everybody afterwards can see. Include these seven things and nothing else.
- The date, and your name, address and phone contact details as they appear on the invoice.
- The invoice number and the date the work was done.
- Exactly what was installed: the antenna model, whether an amplifier was fitted, how many outlets.
- The symptom, when it started, how often it happens, which outlets or which channels, and whether weather changes it.
- What you have already tried, including a retune and swapping the lead at the TV.
- The remedy you want: repair, replacement, or a refund of a specific part of the invoice.
- A deadline of 14 days, and a plain sentence saying you will otherwise take it to Consumer Protection.
Attach photos and a copy of the invoice. Keep the tone flat and unemotional, because the notice may be read later by somebody who was not there. Send it by email so there is a timestamp, and keep the sent copy. In our experience the overwhelming majority of disputes end here, because a clear notice makes it obvious to both sides what is actually being argued about.
Defect, fair wear, or storm damage
A defect is something that was wrong on the day, or that has failed far earlier than it reasonably should. A connector letting water in at month 4. A mast that was never earthed. An antenna sitting several degrees off aim so the weaker multiplexes drop out at night. A wall plate that was never sealed and is now tracking water into the cavity. All of that is workmanship and it should be fixed at no cost to you.
Fair wear is the coastal reality. An antenna within 500 metres of breaking surf at Dalyellup or the Leschenault Estuary is living in one of the harsher atmospheric corrosivity bands in the country, and pitted elements at year 9 are the end of a normal life rather than a fault. Nobody owes you a new one. The honest answer at that point is a replacement, and the specification that gets you the longest second innings is on the antenna specification page.
Storm damage is neither. A mast pushed over by a winter front, a branch through the elements or a lightning surge that has killed an amplifier is an insurance question, not a warranty question, and it goes to your home insurer. The claim detail, including the excess arithmetic that decides whether it is worth lodging at all, is on the storm damage and insurance page.
The grey area is a component that dies just outside its manufacturer warranty: an amplifier dead at month 30 with a 24 month warranty on it. The consumer guarantee on durability can still apply there, because what is reasonable is judged on the price you paid, what you were told when you bought it, and the nature of the product rather than on the warranty card. It is worth asking, politely and in writing.
The honest note: scope prevents almost every dispute
Nearly every antenna argument we hear about is not really a warranty argument. It is two people who never agreed on what the job was. The customer thought the price included running a point to the back bedroom and retuning the shed TV; the installer thought it was one antenna and one outlet. No warranty framework fixes that afterwards.
A scope that prevents it names all of the following before anybody starts: the antenna make and model, whether the mast is new or reused, the cable type and the number of metres, the number of outlets and exactly which rooms, whether an amplifier is included and who supplies the injector, whether the earth bond is included, which sets will be retuned, who removes and disposes of the old hardware, the total including GST, and the workmanship period in years. That is one paragraph on a quote and it is worth more than every warranty clause underneath it. The questions to put to any installer before you get there are on the choosing an installer page.
In fairness, here is what our own warranty does not cover, said plainly: storm and impact damage, lightning surge, a tree that has grown into the signal path since the install, work that somebody else has altered, changes to what the broadcaster transmits, and any outage at the transmitter end. We also do not run a 24 hour emergency callout service and we do not install satellite dishes, so a fault in either of those categories needs somebody else. For what regular servicing does and does not prevent, see the maintenance page, and for the day to day symptom list, the bad signal guide. If you are still at the pricing stage, the budget page and the 2026 price list set out what each tier includes.
Get a scope and a warranty period in writing first
Tell us the job and we will send an itemised quote naming the hardware, the outlets and the workmanship period, within one business day.
Warranty questions
How long is the workmanship warranty on antenna work?
Does the Australian Consumer Law still apply after the warranty expires?
What is the difference between a defect and fair wear?
Who do I complain to in WA if the installer will not come back?
What should a defect notice actually say?
Is antenna installation licensed building work in WA?
Antenna work with the scope and the warranty written down
Itemised quotes, AS 1417 installation, a 5 year workmanship warranty, and metered readings handed over on the day.