If your hot water runs out around dinner time and is back by breakfast, the tank is very probably fine. It is on an off-peak tariff, which means the electricity network, not you, decides when it is allowed to heat. In Parramatta that network is Endeavour Energy, and its rules are not the ones most of the internet describes. The boost switch everybody asks about is the one thing you are not allowed to fit, but there are four legitimate ways to get more hot water out of an off-peak system, and one of them costs nothing but a phone call.
Work through this in order and you will know exactly which tariff your tank is on, when it really heats, and which fix fits your house. If the tank has stopped heating altogether, or there is water underneath it, skip to section 10, or call the plumbers in Parramatta and read the rest while you wait.
Off-peak hot water is a tank wired to its own circuit, which the network switches on and off to use spare capacity. On Endeavour Energy's Controlled Load 1, which covers most Parramatta off-peak tanks, a weekday heat happens overnight and can start up to three hours after 10pm. You cannot legally fit a switch to override it, but you can move to Controlled Load 2, have your retailer schedule it, resize the tank, or take it off controlled load.
- Find the controlled load line on your bill
- Check the NMI to confirm you are on Endeavour
- Find out whether a smart meter switches the tank
- Judge the tank the next morning, not at 10pm
- Ask your retailer about Controlled Load 2 or solar scheduling
On this page
- Find the controlled load line on your bill
- Check the NMI for your network
- Old meter or smart meter?
- Check the tank the next morning
- Ask about Controlled Load 2
- Ask about solar scheduling
- Change the tank or the tariff
- Why tanks run short around Parramatta
- Five things that make it worse
- Emergency, or can it wait?
1. Find the controlled load line on your electricity bill
Before anything else, confirm the tank really is on off-peak. Controlled load is metered separately from the rest of the house, so it shows on your bill as its own line of usage, usually labelled Controlled Load 1 or 2, CL1 or CL2, or off-peak. Some bills also print the network tariff code: N50 for Controlled Load 1 on Endeavour's network, N54 for Controlled Load 2.
No controlled load line means the tank is on your general supply and can heat whenever its thermostat asks, so nothing below about switching times applies. A tank on general supply that runs out is a size problem or a fault, and our guide on what to check when there is no hot water is the better place to start.
If there is a line, note which number it is. Controlled Load 1 is the overnight tariff and the cheaper of the two. Controlled Load 2 gives the tank more hours and costs more to run. That single digit decides almost everything else on this page.
2. Check the NMI to confirm whose network you are on
Every electricity bill carries an NMI, the National Metering Identifier for your connection, and its first characters tell you which network you are on. Under the national allocation list kept by the market operator AEMO, Endeavour Energy NMIs run from 4310000000 to 4319999999 or begin with NEEE. Ausgrid's begin 4102 to 4104, or NCCC.
The suburb of Parramatta is Endeavour territory. Endeavour lists the City of Parramatta among the council areas its network covers. The check still earns its thirty seconds, because most of the off-peak advice written for Sydney describes Ausgrid, the network across the eastern and northern suburbs, and people who move out west bring those rules with them.
Ausgrid's rules genuinely are different. Its Controlled Load 1 is described as supply usually connected for at least six hours in any 24, and in July 2024 Ausgrid moved the switching times for its smart-meter Controlled Load 1 customers to soak up daytime solar. Endeavour's tariff is written another way entirely, which the next two steps explain.
3. Work out whether your tank is switched by a smart meter
How your tank gets switched depends on the meter. On an older installation the job is done by a separate controlled load device, a relay or a time switch, and Endeavour has long sent the on and off signal down the lines from the substation, a system called audio frequency load control. On a smart meter the relay sits inside the meter itself and follows a schedule loaded into it.
That older signal system is being retired, and Westmead is one of the places it is happening. Endeavour's final report on a trial run under the Australian Energy Regulator's sandbox scheme describes replacing off-peak customers' meters with smart meters in five network project areas between July 2024 and November 2025, rather than paying for new audio frequency equipment. One of the five was a Westmead network project, with 267 homes on the target list, still expected to be commissioned within 18 months when the report was written.
So if you are in Westmead and your meter was swapped in the last couple of years, your tank is now switched by the meter rather than by the old signal, and the smart-meter timetable in the next step is the one that applies to you. Anywhere else, your retailer can tell you in one call which kind of meter you have. It is worth asking, because it changes the answer.
4. Check the tank the next morning, not at 10pm
Start with what the tariff actually promises. Endeavour's most recent published network price list defines Controlled Load 1 as supply that may not be available between 7am and 10pm, with supply made available for selected periods between 10pm and 7am. Controlled Load 2 is supply available for restricted periods adding up to no more than 17 hours in any 24.
For smart meters, Endeavour's Retailer and Market Guide (version 2.9, effective 1 December 2025) sets out the schedule the meter is actually given, and it is more generous than the definition suggests. Winter here means 1 April to 31 October, and summer 1 November to 31 March.
- Controlled Load 1, weekdays: on at 10pm, off at 7am.
- Controlled Load 1, weekends: on at 10pm, and stays on until 5pm the next day in winter or 3pm in summer.
- Controlled Load 2, winter weekdays: 10pm to 7am, plus 9am to 5pm.
- Controlled Load 2, summer weekdays: on at 10pm, and stays on until 1pm.
- Controlled Load 2, weekends: the same as Controlled Load 1.
Two things follow. First, every switch-on is randomised by up to 180 minutes, so the network does not bring every tank in western Sydney on at the same second. A tank that is stone cold at 10.15pm has not failed; it may not start heating until 1am. Second, on a smart meter, running the tank dry on a Saturday morning is a very different event from running it dry on a Tuesday night. The weekend tank can recover by the afternoon. The weeknight one waits until tonight.
These are Endeavour's current schedules, and Endeavour can change them. We could not find a published timetable for the older signal system, so on an older meter assume only what the definition promises, which is overnight. Either way, the test is the same: if there is hot water at 7am and none by 7pm on a weeknight, the tank is working, and the question is capacity rather than a fault.
5. Ask your retailer about Controlled Load 2
If you keep running out on weeknights, this is the cheapest fix, because it costs a phone call rather than a new tank. Controlled Load 2 allows up to 17 hours of supply in any 24, and on a smart meter in winter that includes 9am to 5pm on weekdays, so a tank emptied by the morning showers is reheated before anyone gets home.
The change goes through your electricity retailer, the company you pay, not through Endeavour and not through a plumber. Endeavour's own guide says it accepts a change of off-peak network tariff only as a request from the retailer. Ask them what the switch involves for your particular meter.
It does cost more to run. In Endeavour's network prices the energy charge for Controlled Load 2 is roughly one and a half times Controlled Load 1's, both in the 2025-26 price list and in the 2026-27 pricing proposal the regulator approved. Your retailer sets the rate you actually pay on top of that, so ask for the per-kilowatt-hour figure on both tariffs before you move.
One trap if a heat pump is on your list: Endeavour allows a heat pump on Controlled Load 2 with a tank of at least 250 litres, but once it is on Controlled Load 2 it cannot be moved back to Controlled Load 1.
Tank still cold after its overnight run?
If it has had its window and is still cold, something has actually failed. A licensed Parramatta plumber can find out what, 24/7.
6. Ask whether your retailer will schedule the tank around solar
This is the honest answer to how you override off-peak hot water, and almost nobody gives it. Endeavour's Retailer and Market Guide allows a retailer, by agreement with Endeavour, to instruct the metering provider to change the times a controlled load circuit is switched on. The one restriction on Controlled Load 1 and 2 is that the tank must stay off from 4pm to 8pm.
That is the mechanism that lets an off-peak tank be heated in the middle of the day from surplus solar rather than overnight. Whether your retailer offers it is a question for them. If they do, the same guide requires them to help you decide whether to opt out, because your hot water then depends on the retailer's scheduling rather than Endeavour's. Endeavour has also run a small trial tariff called Off Peak + with no time restriction, but its guide describes it as limited capacity and subject to Endeavour's agreement, so treat it as something to ask about rather than count on.
What you cannot do is set the times yourself. The metering provider is not allowed to change controlled load switching times without Endeavour's written consent, and the random start applies unless a retailer is actively scheduling the tank.
7. If the numbers still do not work, change the tank or the tariff
Some tanks are simply too small for the household now living with them. Endeavour's minimum for a tank on Controlled Load 1 is 100 litres of rated hot water delivery, and any tank up to 400 litres gets a single 4.8 kW element. If the family has grown since the tank went in, a perfectly healthy system will run dry every weeknight, and no repair changes that.
A larger tank, or a heat pump on Controlled Load 2, is a hot water replacement rather than a fault call, and the one to plan before the old tank fails rather than after.
The other route is to take the tank off controlled load altogether, so it heats on your general supply whenever it needs to. That removes the timetable, but it also removes the cheaper rate, and the tank will happily heat through the evening peak unless something stops it. Endeavour's residential time-of-use network tariffs have a solar soak period from 10am to 2pm every day and a peak from 4pm to 8pm on business days, so a tank moved to general supply is best paired with a timer that heats it in the middle of the day. That arrangement suits a house with rooftop solar far better than one without.
Rewiring the circuit and fitting that timer is electrical work for a licensed electrician, and the tariff change is, once again, a request to your retailer. If there is already gas to the house, a gas unit takes the tariff out of the question entirely, and that is licensed gas fitting work.
8. Why off-peak tanks run short around Parramatta
Off-peak complaints are not evenly spread across Sydney. A few things make them more common here, and knowing which one applies to you saves chasing the wrong fix.
Most people here did not choose their tank. At the 2021 Census, 85.6 per cent of the 11,749 occupied homes in the suburb of Parramatta were flats or apartments, and 70.2 per cent were rented, against 7.7 per cent separate houses. The person living with an undersized tank is very often not the person who bought it. Whoever holds the electricity account can ask for Controlled Load 2; only the owner can change the tank.
The switching system is changing underneath you. With the old substation signal being replaced by smart meters, around Westmead and elsewhere, a tank can quietly move from one timetable to another when a meter is swapped. The first sign is usually hot water behaving differently on weekends, which is the smart-meter schedule doing exactly what it was told.
The advice is written for the other network. Search for off-peak hot water times and most of what comes back describes Ausgrid, where Controlled Load 1 has its own rules and its smart-meter switching times were moved in 2024 to catch daytime solar. Follow that advice on Endeavour's network and you will be waiting for a daytime top-up that, on a weekday, is not coming.
The evening is always stored water. Even when a retailer schedules your tank, Endeavour keeps controlled load off from 4pm to 8pm. Whatever the household uses between getting home and bedtime has to already be sitting in the tank, so size matters more than people expect.
9. Five things that make it worse
- Fitting a boost switch or a plug. Endeavour's network price list says switches that transfer a controlled load appliance to a non-controlled circuit are not permitted, and that plugs and sockets are not permitted on a controlled load circuit under any circumstances. Endeavour can move you off the tariff if its conditions are not met, and in NSW you need a licence to do any electrical wiring work, with fines of up to $22,000 for an individual doing it without one.
- Deciding it is broken at 10.05pm. The switch-on can be randomised by up to three hours. Resetting breakers and ringing people before 1am usually just means the tank had not started yet.
- Booking a plumber for a meter fault. If the tank has had a full overnight window, the breaker is on and nothing is leaking, the relay may be the problem. A plumber can test the element but cannot repair a relay inside a meter. See the next section for who to ring.
- Buying a bigger tank before asking about Controlled Load 2. More heating hours on the tank you already own is a phone call. A new tank is a replacement. Try the cheap one first.
- Moving the tank to general supply with no timer. It will reheat the moment the evening showers start, right in the 4pm to 8pm peak, which is the most expensive way there is to heat water.
10. When it is a real emergency, and when it can wait
Call a plumber straight away if: there is water under or around the tank; the relief valve is running constantly rather than dribbling now and then; the hot water breaker trips the moment you reset it; or water is anywhere near the meter board. Our guide on a leaking hot water system covers how to tell a valve doing its job from a tank that has gone.
It can wait if: the tank is on Controlled Load 1 and ran out on a weeknight, because it will start again after 10pm whoever you call. That is not a fault, and an after-hours call-out will not change it.
It is probably the switching, not the tank, if: the tank has stayed cold through a full overnight window with the breaker on and nothing leaking. On an older meter with Endeavour's own controlled load device, Endeavour's guide says to call its contact centre on 131 003, and that it will attend and may bypass the device to get your hot water back. On a smart meter, Endeavour refers you to your electricity retailer during business hours, and sends someone after hours only for vulnerable customers.
If you are not sure which of those you are looking at, ring and describe it. We would rather tell you it is the meter and save you the call-out than charge you to confirm it.
- Parramatta is on Endeavour Energy's network, not Ausgrid's, and the NMI on your bill proves it: 4310 to 4319, or NEEE.
- On Controlled Load 1 a weekday heat is overnight and can start up to three hours after 10pm; on a smart meter, weekends run on into the afternoon.
- No boost switches and no plugs on a controlled load circuit. That is Endeavour's rule, and the wiring needs a licensed electrician anyway.
- The legitimate fixes are Controlled Load 2, retailer scheduling around solar, a bigger tank, or general supply on a timer.
- Cold all day with the breaker on and nothing leaking points at the relay: Endeavour on 131 003 for an older meter, your retailer for a smart one.
Off-peak hot water FAQs for Parramatta
Is Parramatta on Endeavour Energy or Ausgrid for off-peak hot water?
Endeavour Energy. Endeavour lists the City of Parramatta among the council areas its network covers, and its Controlled Load 1 tariff is defined as supply that may not be available between 7am and 10pm, with supply made available overnight. Ausgrid writes its rules differently, so off-peak advice written for the eastern and northern suburbs often does not apply here. The NMI on your bill confirms it: one starting 4310 to 4319, or NEEE, is on Endeavour's network.
Why does my off-peak hot water recover on weekends but not on weeknights?
If you have a smart meter, that is how Endeavour's schedule works. Its Retailer and Market Guide gives Controlled Load 1 a weeknight window of 10pm to 7am, but on weekends the tank stays switched on until 5pm in winter and 3pm in summer before coming back on at 10pm. So a tank emptied on a Saturday morning can recover by the afternoon, while one emptied on a Tuesday evening waits until that night.
Can an electrician fit a boost switch to my off-peak tank?
Not on Endeavour's network. Its network price list says a switch that transfers a controlled load appliance to another tariff is not permissible, and that plugs and sockets are not permitted on a controlled load circuit under any circumstances. Endeavour can move you off the tariff if its conditions are not met. The legitimate ways to get more heating hours are Controlled Load 2, a retailer that schedules the tank for you, or taking it off controlled load altogether.
My off-peak hot water has stopped completely. Do I call a plumber or Endeavour Energy?
If there is water under the tank or the hot water breaker keeps tripping, call us. If the tank has simply stayed cold through a full overnight window with the breaker on and nothing leaking, the switching may have failed rather than the tank. On an older meter with Endeavour's own controlled load device, Endeavour's guide says to call its contact centre on 131 003, and that it will attend and may bypass the device. On a smart meter, Endeavour refers you to your electricity retailer during business hours.
I rent a unit in Parramatta and the tank runs out every evening. What can I do?
You are far from alone. At the 2021 Census, 70.2 per cent of occupied homes in the suburb of Parramatta were rented and 85.6 per cent were flats or apartments. Whoever holds the electricity account can ask the retailer about Controlled Load 2, which adds daytime hours. The tank belongs to the owner, so a bigger tank or a different system is a request to your landlord or agent, because a working tank that is too small is not a fault.