What do we do if the electricity goes off?

Problem

RCD box under the stairs in Marcia Road houses

The electricity suddenly goes off in all or part of the house. You may hear a ‘bang’ when it does.

Likely cause

A sudden change in the electricity in the circuit has caused the house’s residual current device (RCD) safety devices to ‘trip out’.

What you can do

  1. Locate the box that contains the RCDs. It is in the small cupboard under the stairs.
  2. One or more of the switches will be pointing down. (Up is ‘on’, down is ‘off’.)
  3. (If no switches are pointing down, there may be a general powercut (‘outage’) in the neighbourhood.)
  4. There are switches that control single curciuts such as upstairs or downstairs lights or sockets or kitchen appliances.
  5. Push the switch up, but do not hold it up – be prepared for it to flip back down again.
  6. If the switch stays up, all’s well, it was just a temporary problem.

If just the sockets or appliances (microwave, fridge, washer, etc.) stop working, use the following instructions to find out which one is causing the problem. When you find it, leave it off and call someone who can investigate and repair it. When it is off you should be able to use the other appliances without problems.

  1. Start by turning off all the appliances at the panel in the kitchen (by the hob)
  2. Reset the switch at the consumer board and, if it doesn’t flip back off, switch the appliances back on one by one until it flips off again.
  3. If, when all the appliances are off the consumer board switch doesn’t reset, unplug everything around the house, reset the switch and plug things in one by one (and switch them on!) until something causes it to go off.

If resetting the switch doesn’t work

If the switch flips back down, or it only stays on for a while, there is a problem in the circuit that needs investigating by a professional electrician.