Emergency Electrical

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 5 REASONS WHY THE POWER HAS GONE OUT 

Overloaded Power Boards

Plugging in a number of appliances that demand high levels of power can overload your power board by exceeding it amperage.

This is a common cause for tripped circuits, however, if circuit breakers or fuses fail, overloaded power boards can result in fire and other damages to your home.

Make sure to unplug all appliances that aren’t in use to ensure your power boards aren’t overloaded. Also, avoid plugging power boards into other power boards, as this can cause power demands to spiral out of control.

Tripped Fuses and Circuit Breakers

As mentioned above, excess power demands will result in fuses blowing or circuit breakers tripping.

Depending on which systems are in place in your home, fuses or circuit breakers, you should first try to identify the cause of the fuse blowing or circuit breaking, e.g. overloaded power boards, and remedy it before switching the power back on.

Mother Nature

If there is a storm in your area, there’s a good chance you may experience a power outage at some point of its duration.

Lightening can induce currents large enough to trip breakers or blow transformers on nearby power lines. However, more often than not, the main cause for power outages in a storm are trees or branches landing on the power lines, breaking the circuit.

Do not go out and fiddle with your fuse box during a storm, as this outage is out of your control. There will be well-trained electricians working hard to fix the situation so that all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the storm.

Animal Interference

Believe it or not, another reason for power outages in your home can be linked to inference from wildlife.

Rats and other vermin can view the wires in your home or area’s electricity infrastructure as a tasty snack, choosing to gnaw on them until the power goes out both in your home and in their body.

Another common way animals cause power outages is when they come in contact with power lines. 

Accidents

Animals and storms aren’t the only things that cause damage to power lines, as traffic accidents, namely people driving their cars into power poles, can also cause outages in your area.

If you’re experiencing a power outage late at night and can’t identify a simple cause, feel free to call us for our after hour’s emergency service and let our electrical contractors get the power back on in your home as soon as possible.

Safety switches are life saving devices protecting you, your family and your home from disastrous electrical damage. But, what happens when these devices continually go off at random?

There are various reasons why your safety switches are frequently tripping; some easily remedied, while others not so much.

FAULTY APPLIANCES

Probably the most common cause for electrical safety switches randomly tripping is damaged and/or faulty household appliances.

Faulty appliances produce electrical current leakages, which create imbalances in the circuit.

In this situation, it is important you determine which appliance is responsible for triggering the safety mechanism.

To do this, unplug all the appliances connected to the tripped circuit. Next, turn the safety switch and the power back on and plug the appliances in one at a time until the safety switch is triggered again. This will help you identify the faulty appliance and let you know which one you probably should get rid of.

FAULTY WIRING

Another common, yet inconvenient, explanation for frequent safety switch triggering is faulty wiring.

Faulty wiring can lead to electrical overload and is often caused by poor electrical work, damage to the wires during renovation, wildlife interference or simply the system being old and out of date.

If you suspect you have faulty wiring in your home, you may want to keep an eye out for the following key symptoms:

• Humming and Buzzing Sounds
• Flickering or Dimming Lights
• Burning Smells
• Smoke
• Scorch Marks
• Outlets Heating Up

ELECTRICAL STORMS

Next on our list is a fault caused by electrical storms. If lightning happens to hit your home, or the power lines in your area, or even the power station, an electrical surge will occur.

To protect your home and your life from potential electrical damage, the safety switch will trigger and essentially turn the power off in your home.

It’s an important safety precaution that you do not turn the power back on until the storm has passed.

If, however, the storm has passed and you cannot switch the power back on to your home, feel free to contact us and one of our after-hours licensed domestic electricians will be more than happy to attend to your issue.

NUISANCE TRIPPING

Nuisance tripping occurs when too many appliances are plugged into the same outlet, either through adaptors or power boards. Even if these appliances are only leaking minor currents, their aggregate load will cause a substantial change in current and trip the safety switch.

For this reason, it’s generally never a good idea to piggyback large appliances into the same outlet. Also, to avoid nuisance tripping you should unplug all appliances that aren’t currently in use, which are unnecessarily draining power or leaking current.

YOU HAVE A FAULTY SAFETY SWITCH

Finally, the last reason on our list involves a fault in the actual safety switch itself.

If you have unplugged all of your appliances from the triggered circuit, and the safety switch still seems to trip by itself, you need to call a licensed professional to assess the situation.

If when you try to reset the safety switch and you see a pop, flash or a spark you need to stop what you’re doing and immediately call licensed electrical contractors.

Unfortunately, these problems don’t always happen during office hours and finding an electrician to assist you in an emergency can be difficult. This is why we provide 24-hour electrical services from domestic electricians to help you when you need it most.