Home electrics - What to do if your lights are not working

Last post I spoke about what to do if your electric sockets aren't working today its the lights. This is a simple one to sort out first you need to establish if it's just the lamp (bulb) that has blown, or are all the lights off in which case it would be a fuse has blown or circuit breaker has tripped. to do this try lights in other rooms and/or replace the lamp.


Note: sometimes when a lamp blows it will trip a circuit breaker in modern consumer units.


Most houses have at least 2 circuits for lighting an upstairs and downstairs circuit as this helps minimise inconvenience when a fuse/circuit breaker blows also it splits up the load of all the lights.


If the fuse/ circuit breaker has blown then either replace the fuse wire with 5amp wire* and then check that the light now comes on if it doesn't and the fuse/circuit breaker blows again then you'll need to call an electrician if the fuse/circuit breaker are on but there are no lights then there is a problem with the wiring and you'll need to call an electrician to find the fault.




Keep safe
Paul






* replacing fuse wire with the incorrect size wire or any other material can cause a circuit to not be correctly protected if there is a fault, this is dangerous as the fuse is a protective device and can prevent fires and electric shocks.

Replacing an electrical fuseboard (Consumer Unit)

This blog post is all about having an electrical fuse board now known as a consumer unit replaced, what you should expect and how much it will cost.

Having an electrical fuseboard replaced is an involved job and not as simple as some may think, however for the trained professional it is a simple job. Replacing a fuse board with a consumer unit is generally a full days work, depending how big the property is, you can expect the work to take this long for a 3 bedroom house, but why?

An Electrical Installation Certificate

Firstly the electrical installation needs to be tested to make sure it's safe and that the new consumer unit won't trip when the circuits are connected it, if there is an electrical fault then this will need to be rectified before the fuse board is replaced. Once the installation has been inspected and tested the board can then be replaced, the tails (wires) feeding the board need to be replace and most times the earthing has to be upgraded too, sometimes the cables for the circuits are too short and then need to be extended which can add more time to the process.Once all this has been done a few more tests need to be done and an electrical installation certificate needs to be completed. 

If you have had or having a fuse board replaced for a consumer unit, and you have been told it will only take a couple of hours then it is possible the job will not be done properly!

How much will it cost?

I once quoted to change a fuse board, when I followed up with the customer to see if he wanted to go ahead with the work he said he'd found someone who could do it cheaper, When I asked how much I was given the reply £210, I was shocked (no pun intended) to hear this as the materials cost alone was was over £120 which meant he was only going to charge £90 for labour/overheads, I asked the customer if he'd asked the electrician (I use the term loosely) how long it would take - he was told it would be about a couple of hours! 

I strongly feel that the customer would not have had a good job done in this instance or been done properly, if you are quoted these sort of figures the I would definitely get a second opinion.

Prices as ever vary from electrician to electrician but I know prices can be around £350 - £650 Which includes Labour, materials, testing and certification. Again it depends the size of the electrical installation a studio flat will be less however a five bed house will be more. 

Regards

Paul

Hertford Electrician