Power gone at the weekend: how to find an electrician who is actually free
Half the house is dead, it is Saturday teatime, and the emergency numbers all want a callout fee before anyone looks at it. What to check first, and how to find a local electrician who is free now rather than Monday.
Saturday, about five o'clock. Half the sockets are dead, the freezer is off, and the usual sparky is not answering because it is the weekend and he is with his kids.
Before you ring anybody, two minutes of checking can tell you whether you need an electrician at all.
Is it you, or is it everyone?
Look at your neighbours' lights, or check your supplier's outage map. If the street is out, it is a network fault and an electrician cannot help — call 105, free, from any phone in Great Britain. That is the national number that puts you through to your local network operator.
If it is only your house, it is yours to sort.
Check the consumer unit before you call anyone
Go to the fuse board. One switch sitting down while the rest are up is the answer to most weekend "power cuts".
- Switch everything off at the sockets on the dead circuit first.
- Push the tripped switch back up.
- If it holds, plug things back in one at a time. The one that trips it again is your culprit — usually a kettle, an immersion heater, or an outdoor light that has taken water.
- If it will not stay up with everything unplugged, stop. That is a fault in the fixed wiring, and it needs an electrician.
Never tape a switch up, and never swap a fuse for a bigger one. That switch is the thing standing between a fault and a fire.
Finding someone who is free, not someone who might call back
Here is the bit that wastes the evening: you ring four electricians, two do not answer, one is an answering service, and one can come Monday.
The alternative is to look at who is actually free before you dial. Every tradesperson on Speedi sets their own light — green for free right now, amber for shortly, red for busy — and it expires on a timer, so green means recent.
If you are in Lancashire, that is electricians available now — and you message whoever is green directly, agreeing the price with them before they set off.
What about the callout fee?
Weekend rates are fair enough; somebody is leaving their house on a Saturday night. The bit worth avoiding is paying a fixed fee to a call centre before anybody has looked at the job.
Speedi takes no commission, so whatever you agree with the electrician is what they get. That tends to make the conversation about the job rather than the booking.
If nobody is free
Say what the job is and how soon you need it, and it goes to every matching electrician nearby at once — not one at a time, like ringing round. The first to take it gets it and you get their number. Not every request gets picked up; about one in five does. But it takes a minute, and you can carry on sorting the freezer while it is out.
Keep these to hand
- 105 — power cut, free, any phone in Great Britain.
- 0800 111 999 — National Gas Emergency Service, if you smell gas.
- Your fuse board location, and a torch that works.
The short version
Check whether it is the street or your house. Check the consumer unit. If it is the fixed wiring, find somebody who is free right now rather than ringing round hoping — and agree the price before they set off.