Troubleshooting

Electrical faults can take many forms, from the minor irritant to the serious and life threatening. They can appear gradually over time as a result of wear and tear and deterioration or suddenly as a result of changes made accidentally or deliberately through lack of knowledge or competence.

Most minor faults won't be dangerous but could prevent circuits from working as they should - so you know there is a fault - like a light, socket or appliance. Of more concern are those that could be dangerous if they are left to get worse.

Read more about Dangers of Electrical Faults
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Next in my series of Smart tips of answers frequently asked questions is Smart tip 2 Staying Safe in your kitchen.

Over half of all house fires start in the kitchen. Government statistics show that most reported accidental fires caused by electricity in the home are due to people misusing electrical cooking appliances, including microwaves.

Read more about Smart Tips 2: Staying safe in your kitchen
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Simple visual checks on the electrics in yiur home that could save your life

Take a look at these simple visual checks that could save you and your families’ lives.

Millions of people in the UK expose themselves and their families to potentially fatal electrical accidents in the home by making simple blunders, down to a lack of knowledge about the dangers of electricity.

It is important to make sure that the electrical installation in your property is well maintained, and we recommend that you use a registered electrician to check that it is safe.

However, there are a number of simple, visual checks that you can carry out yourself:

Read more about Simple visual checks that could save your life
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I'm frequently asked questions that I'd hope everyone knew the answers to. So I'm going to run a series of Smart tips to help make your life, and hopefully mine, a little easier.

So Smart Tip 1 covers how to handle a tripping fuse safely, save a little money, and when to call me out.

Read more about Smart tip 1: How to handle a tripping fuse
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A simple job to test the lighting circuit as part of an EICR turned up this gem.

Gap filling taken to an extreme with the foam completely filling the light switch but nothing having changedexternally.

A short time after the EICR was finished the foam was chopped out circuit tested fully soon after.

Removal of the expanding foam in the light switch

Replacement of the light switch after the expanding foam has gone

Electrical Installation Condition Report

Landlords Certificate

Repair

Fault finding

Troubleshooting

Read more about Electric Fails - Lighting

Melting plugs and sheaths on wires happen more often than you might realise.

Poorly terminated wires explain some of them but more often it is due to DIY installations combined with excessive loads being used on the socket.

The first melted plug was connected via a long extension to an outbuiding where the small Consumer unit pitcured was wired directly to it. Multiple freezers were running from it. This really was a fire waiting to happen.

The outdoor socket in the third image shows the sheath melting from the temperatures being reached in the copper cable. The sockets were being used to power extension leads running various outdoor heaters. Again luck was all that had prevented a fire.

Look at the socket calculator here to check whether you're over stressing your cabling and sockets.

Melted plug found to be feeding a circuit board with multiple freezers

An outside socket with melted sheathing from excess load

Read more about Electrical Fails - Melting plugs

The consumer unit in an annexe needed to be replaced.

It lacked RCD protection and the SWA connection to a garden room had failed after 30 years.

After testing the circuits to confirm that the circuits were still OK to continue to be used the old board was removed and replaced with a small split RCD protected board. One side for the garden room feeding a swimming pool filter and air source pump, the other for lighting and socket circuits.

The old consumer unit with circuit tails showing ready to be removed

Old consumer unit removed and circuit tails ready for the new install

New SWA cable being fed in for supply to garden room

New consumer unit on the wall with all circuit tails ready to connect

New consumer unit on the wall with all circuits tails ready to connect

New consumer unit with MCBs connected to each circuit ready for testing

The SWA cable termination connectors and cober

Replacement consumer units

Repair

Troubleshooting

Read more about Consumer Unit Replacement

We were told that the lighting for the garden hadn't worked for a long time and the pump for a similar time. Can we take a look.

This is what we found shortly after arriving - granted it was under a car port which was watertight but still...

An indoor fused control unit (FCU) with SWA - the thick black cable - which had been terminated but was hanging from the terminations in the FCU. Various other electrical connections had been attempted unsuccessfully.

Everything was taken out and made safe to be re-installed properly at a later date.

Electrical fail - Outdoor FCU to lighting and pond pump

Read more about Electrical Fails - Outdoor Power

Upgrade to a make do and mend installation including many extensions and hardwired extension leads, and an extension to an adjacent toilet block.

The consumer unit required new connections to the MCBs as wire had been used in place of it.

The toilet block having fused control units to lights and the installed water heater.

Read more about Garden Outbuilding Upgrades

What a tripped fuse means, what you can do about it and when you need to call us out.

Fault finding

Troubleshooting

Read more about Smart Tips 1: How To Handle A Tripping Fuse

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Call me today on 01827 799 876 for a free, no obligation, quotation for your project. Your call matters to me, and I WILL respond.

Take Care When Selecting an Electrician!!

Many other electricians in the area are simply not interested in small electrical works. They want the choice jobs and will drop you like a hot potato when a bigger project comes along.

Others advertise for work as electricians despite having no qualifications. They thrive on the basis that you don't understand what they do and, as a result, overcharge for shoddy, often dangerous, work.

This of course is not limited to Tamworth, the same happens in other areas such as Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield and elsewhere in the surrounding area.

I set up Tamworth Electricians to fill a gap in the domestic sector. I want to provide you with a quality service that provides you with exactly what you need from an electrician.