Emergency electrician, inner north

Turn the power off and ring us now if

• You can smell burning, or see scorch marks at a power point or the switchboard
• Anything is sparking, or a fitting or point is hot to touch
• There is water near the switchboard, or into light fittings
• Someone has had a shock off an appliance, a tap or a light switch
• A cable is down or exposed where people can reach it

For a shock or a fire, ring 000 first. We come after that.

Things that usually are not emergencies

We would rather say so than charge you for a night callout you did not need. One dead power point with everything else working, a single light out, a safety switch that tripped once and reset fine, or a hot water service that has stopped when you have hot water elsewhere. These are all next-day jobs.

We will tell you that on the phone. It costs us a callout and it is still the right thing to say.

Before you ring, if you can

Have a quick look at the switchboard and see whether anything has tripped. If a safety switch has gone, unplug everything on that circuit and try resetting it once. If it holds, the fault is in one of the appliances and you can find it by plugging them back in one at a time. If it trips straight back with nothing plugged in, leave it off and ring.

Knowing which switch tripped and what was running at the time genuinely speeds up the diagnosis.

What happens when we get there

We find the fault, make it safe, and tell you what it will take to fix properly. Where we can do it on the spot we will. Where the real repair is a bigger job, we make the house safe, explain what is going on, and quote the rest so you are deciding with the full picture rather than at eleven at night.