Electrical Warning Signs: What to Act On Tonight

Most electrical faults announce themselves before they become an incident. The problem is that the warning looks a lot like a nuisance, so it gets lived with.

This is a triage guide rather than a scare list. Three groups: stop now, this week, and worth mentioning. Knowing which group you are in is more useful than a list of twenty things that might be wrong.

Stop now

These mean stop using the thing, isolate it if you can do so safely, and get someone out.

A burning smell with no source you can find. Hot plastic, hot bakelite, or a sharp smell like fish. That last one is specific: overheating electrical insulation and some flame-retardant compounds give off a fishy smell, and people do report it before a switchboard fault. If you can smell it at the meter box or switchboard, treat it as urgent.

Anything warm to the touch that should not be. A switch plate, a socket, a cover on the board. Warmth means resistance, and resistance in a connection that should have almost none means a loose or degrading termination.

Scorch marks, browning or melted plastic. Around a socket, a switch, or on the board. That is a record of heat that has already happened.

Buzzing, crackling or sizzling from the board or a socket. Arcing has a sound. It is not a normal sound.

Sparks when you plug something in. A small blue flick as a high-load appliance connects can be normal. Repeated sparking, or sparking with a sound and a smell, is not.

A shock or a tingle from a tap, a wet area or an appliance body. Even a mild one. That is current finding a path through the building's metalwork, and it means an earthing or wiring fault.

A main switch or RCD that will not stay on. Do not keep resetting it. Protection tripping repeatedly is protection doing its job about something.

These ones are not ours first

A service cable down, sagging, or pulled away from the building. Stay well clear, keep people and animals away, and treat it as live even if your power is out. Do not attempt to move or support it. Call 000 if there is fire or immediate danger to life, then your distributor's emergency line. Once the site is safe, the repair from the network's pole to your building is Level 2 work.

Any fire, smoke or arcing you can see. 000 first. Always.

Water through the meter box or switchboard. Anything that has been inundated has to be assessed before it is re-energised, not simply switched back on.

This week

Not an emergency. Also not nothing, and each of these has a specific meaning.

Lights dimming when the air conditioner or a motor starts. Voltage dropping across the supply under load. Usually a capacity question rather than a fault, and the mains are the usual answer. There is a longer piece on exactly this.

Power dropping out with nothing visible and nothing tripped. Often an intermittent supply-side fault: a degrading connection, water ingress at a pit, or damage to an underground service that has not failed completely yet. It needs tracing with test equipment rather than parts replaced on a guess.

Partial power. Some circuits live, some dead, and nothing tripped. On a multi-phase supply this can mean a lost phase. On single phase it can mean a neutral problem. Either way it is upstream of your board, and a neutral fault is worth treating with more urgency than the symptom suggests, because it can put voltage where it should not be.

Lights getting brighter, or bulbs failing unusually often across the house. Not a globe quality problem. Over-voltage on some circuits is one of the signatures of a neutral fault.

A main switch that trips only on hot days. Cable ratings fall as ambient temperature rises, so a supply that is marginal all year becomes inadequate in February. That points at capacity rather than at a fault.

Corrosion or rust at the point where the service cable lands on the building. The point of attachment is under constant mechanical load, outdoors, usually on the weather side. Surface marking is a reason to inspect rather than a diagnosis, but it is one of the most commonly listed defect items.

A notice from your distributor taped to the meter box. That is a defect notice and it has a date on it. It is not a fine and there is no penalty for the notice itself, but supply can be disconnected if it is ignored past that date.

Worth mentioning

Book these in with whatever else you need done.

• Ceramic fuses rather than circuit breakers on the board
• No test button anywhere on the board, meaning no RCD protection
• A board with no spare ways, if you are planning to add anything
• A board with no circuit labelling
• Vegetation growing into the service line span
• A meter enclosure with a door that no longer closes or latches

Two things worth doing yourself

Test your RCDs. Press the test button. It should trip immediately. Reset it. Every few months is reasonable. An RCD that does not trip on test is not protecting anyone.

Know where your main switch is, and that you can reach it. In the dark. With something in front of the board. This is the whole reason where a board is positioned matters more than it sounds.

What not to do

Do not keep resetting a breaker that keeps tripping. You are overriding a decision the protection made about a fault that is still there.

Do not fit a bigger fuse or a bigger breaker to stop nuisance tripping. The device is sized for the cable behind it. A larger one does not fix the problem, it removes the cable's protection.

Do not work near a service line. Not tree work, not roof work, not painting, not scaffolding within reach of the span. The supply gets isolated first, then the work happens, then it is reconnected. That isolation is Level 2 work and it is a normal, bookable job.

Do not assume no power means no danger. A cable can be de-energised at your property and live at the network end.

Frequently asked questions

My power is out. Is it my problem or the network's? Look at the neighbours. If the street is out, it is the distributor's and they will be working on it. If only your property is out and nothing on your board has tripped, the fault is likely on your service or your supply equipment, which is Level 2 territory.

Is a tripping RCD a faulty RCD? Usually not. RCDs trip because of earth leakage, and a small amount is normal on some appliances, especially older motors and heating elements. Unplugging things one at a time will often identify it. An RCD that trips with everything unplugged is a wiring issue.

What is a neutral fault and why does it matter? The neutral is the return path. If it degrades or breaks upstream of your board, the loads on the installation can end up sharing a path in a way that raises voltage on some circuits and lowers it on others. Damaged appliances, flickering, and unusual brightness are typical. It is a supply-side fault and worth calling in promptly.

Can I just turn off the main switch and wait? For most of the "stop now" list, yes, and it is a sensible thing to do. It does not help with anything on the network side of your main switch, because your main switch does not isolate that.

Do you actually answer the phone at 2am? Yes. We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with same-day response for urgent work. After-hours attendance is charged at a higher rate than planned work, and we tell you that rate on the phone before anyone is dispatched rather than on the invoice.

If something on the first list describes your place

Call 0485 824 714 and describe what you are seeing, hearing and smelling. Whoever picks up does this work, so you will get a straight answer about whether it waits until morning.

We are accredited Level 2 ASPs under the NSW Government's ASP Scheme, authorised to work on the distribution network, with 15 years on connection-side work and a Lifetime Labour Warranty on what we do. Free quotes, across Sydney and the Blue Mountains on both the Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy networks.

For fire or immediate danger to life, call 000 first.