urgent
Emergency electrician, 24 hours
An out of hours call out costs £80 to £160 for the first hour, with parts on top, and roughly double that overnight or on a bank holiday. Before anybody arrives, switch off the circuit that tripped at the consumer unit and leave it off. That one action separates a fault from a fire.
What this covers
What it costs. An out of hours electrician charges £80 to £160 for the first hour on a weekday evening and £120 to £250 overnight, at a weekend or on a bank holiday. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Total loss of power to a property
- A circuit that trips the moment it is reset
- Burning smells, scorch marks and overheating accessories
- Water ingress into a consumer unit or socket
- Making a damaged installation safe until it can be repaired
What is involved
Most genuine emergencies are one of four things. A circuit trips and will not reset, which usually means an earth fault somewhere on it. There is a smell of burning or visible scorching at a socket, switch or the board itself. Water has reached part of the installation, through a leak, a flood or a failed shower. Or the whole property has gone dark and the neighbours have not.
That last one is worth separating out, because it is often not an electrician's job. If the supply is dead at the main fuse the fault belongs to the distribution network operator, and 105 reaches them free from any phone in Great Britain, day or night, at no charge. An electrician cannot lawfully touch the service head or the cut out fuse. Calling 105 first costs a minute and can save a call out fee.
What an emergency visit buys is a safe installation, not always a finished repair. A faulty circuit is isolated and locked off, damaged accessories are removed and made safe, and the rest of the property is put back on. Anything needing a part from a wholesaler is booked for the next working day. An electrician who tries to complete the whole job at two in the morning with the wrong cable usually creates a second visit and charges for both.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask for the call out charge, the rate after the first hour, and whether the rate changes at midnight, before agreeing to anything. Ask whether the person attending is scheme registered, because a board or a new circuit is notifiable work. Treat a national number with no local address carefully: the price quoted on the phone and the price on the invoice are often different numbers.
Common questions
My whole house has no power. Who do I call?
Check whether the neighbours have power and whether the main switch in the consumer unit has tripped. If the street is dark, or your main fuse has failed, call 105. It is free, it reaches your network operator, and they attend faults on their side of the meter at no charge.
A circuit keeps tripping. Is that an emergency?
Not usually, and there is a useful test. Unplug everything on that circuit and reset it. If it holds, an appliance is at fault and you have found it by plugging things back in one at a time. If it trips with nothing connected, the fault is in the wiring and it needs an electrician.