Power outage
No power? What to check before you book an electrician
Losing power is disorienting, but a few quick checks tell you whether it's actually an electrician's job — and if it is, how urgent it is.
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Check these first
Look at your consumer unit (fuse board): has a breaker (switch) tripped to the "off" position, or has the main RCD switch dropped? If so, and there's no burning smell or visible damage, you can usually try resetting it once. If it trips again immediately, stop — that's a fault, not something to keep resetting.
Ask a neighbour if they've lost power too, or check your energy supplier's outage map online (usually reachable from a phone even with your own power off). A street-wide cut is a supplier issue, not an electrician's — report it to them instead.
When it's an electrician's job
If your neighbours still have power, the outage is inside your property — in the wiring, the consumer unit, or a specific circuit. That's when an emergency electrician call-out is the right next step, especially if a breaker won't stay reset or only part of the house has lost power.
A partial loss — power to some rooms or appliances but not others — almost always points to a specific fault rather than a supply issue, and is worth getting looked at even if it isn't dangerous yet.