Power out in part of the house or building? What to check first

Step 1: is it just you?

Look outside first. If the neighbours, the streetlights or the shops next door are dark too, the problem is almost certainly in the street, not your wiring. That belongs to your electricity distributor, the company that owns the poles and wires. In Melbourne that is CitiPower, Powercor, Jemena, United Energy or AusNet Services, depending on where you are, and the name is on your power bill. Their websites have outage maps and a faults line. Your retailer usually cannot fix a street outage.

If everyone else has power and you only have some of yours, the fault is most likely on your side of the meter. Keep going.

Step 2: look at the switchboard, door open, cover on

Open the switchboard door only. You are looking for one switch that sits in a different position from the rest.

• A safety switch (RCD) has dropped. These usually have a small "T" or "Test" button. They trip when current leaks to earth, often from a faulty appliance, a wet outdoor point or water in a light fitting.
• A circuit breaker has dropped. These trip on overload or a short, such as a heater and a kettle on the same circuit, or a damaged lead.

Push the tripped switch fully off, then back on, once. If it holds and the power comes back, note which circuit it was and what was running at the time. If it trips straight away, leave it off. Unplug everything on that part of the house, try once more, then plug things back in one at a time. If it trips when one appliance goes back in, that appliance is your likely problem.

Our post on why switchboards trip goes deeper on repeat trips. If it trips again with everything unplugged, the fault is in the fixed wiring, and that is a job for us.

Step 3: nothing has tripped, but part of the place is dead

This is the pattern that catches people out. Every switch on the board looks normal, yet a room, a run of power points or a set of lights has no power. The usual causes we find:

• A loose or burnt connection in a power point. Power points on a circuit are wired one to the next. If a terminal burns out in one of them, every point after it on that run can go dead, while the breaker stays on. Look for scorch marks or a point that feels warm, and read our post on a burning smell from a power point if you find one.
• A failed connection at the board or a junction. Heat and age loosen terminals. The circuit shows "on" but nothing reaches the outlets.
• Lost phase on a three-phase supply. Many commercial spaces and some larger homes have three-phase power. If roughly a third of the circuits are out and nothing has tripped, one phase of the supply may be down. That can sit with the distributor or at the main connection, and it needs a call either way.
• Damaged cable. A screw or nail through a cable during renovation work, rodents in the roof, or water getting into a junction box.
• Lights out, power fine. A tripped or faulty lighting circuit, a failed switch, or failed LED drivers on a run of downlights. Our lighting work covers driver and fitting replacements.

None of these are DIY fixes. Electrical work in Victoria has to be done by a licensed electrician, and opening covers or pulling power points out to have a look is how people get hurt. Leave the dead section off and call.

When to call straight away

Some partial outages can wait for a booked visit. These cannot:

• A burning smell, scorch marks, buzzing or crackling from a power point, light or the switchboard.
• A board or outlet that is hot to touch, or sparks when something is plugged in.
• Water near electrics after a storm or a leak.
• The main switch or a safety switch that will not stay on.
• No power to fridges and freezers, cool rooms, medical equipment, alarms or anything a business cannot trade without.

If there is smoke or fire, get out and call 000. If a powerline or the service line to the building is down, stay well clear (Energy Safe Victoria advises at least 8 metres, and away from anything the line is touching), then report it to your distributor and the police, or call 000 if anyone is in danger. For everything else on that list, call us on 1300 456 367. We answer 24/7 across Melbourne.

What not to do while you wait

• Do not keep resetting a switch that trips straight back off. Each reset puts the fault current through the wiring again.
• Do not run extension leads from the working half of the house into the dead half as a long-term fix. Leads under rugs and through doorways overheat.
• If you still have old ceramic fuses, do not rewire a blown fuse with heavier wire. The fuse is the weak link on purpose. That board is also a strong sign it is time to look at switchboard upgrades.
• Do not take the switchboard cover or a power point off to look behind it.

What we do on site

On a repairs and faults call we start at the switchboard. We check the labelling, test the safety switches, and isolate the circuit that is out. Then we test along the run, point to point, until we find where the power stops: a burnt terminal, a failed joint, a damaged cable or a faulty fitting. It gets fixed, and the circuit is tested again before we leave.

If the fault turns out to be on the supply side, we tell you plainly and who to call. When a distributor defect notice or overhead supply repair needs an electrician, that is part of our repairs work too. You get a price before any work starts. All our work carries a 2-year workmanship warranty, and a Certificate of Electrical Safety is issued when the job needs one.

Burnt power points and switches are replaced like for like, or upgraded if you want more outlets or USB points while we are there. That sits under power points and appliances.

Commercial spaces: offices, shops and clinics

In commercial spaces a partial outage costs trading time. A dead circuit can take out a point-of-sale counter, a server cupboard, a kitchen line or a treatment room while the rest of the building looks fine. The quicker you can tell us which board, which circuit and what stopped, the quicker we can get it back.

Facilities managers and building owners can keep that simple: labelled boards, an up-to-date circuit list, and regular checks of safety switches. That is what our electrical maintenance visits are for, so the next fault is a quick trace instead of a guess. We work after hours when trading hours make that easier.

Quick answers

Why are half my power points dead but the lights still work? Power and lights are on separate circuits. A tripped power circuit or safety switch is the first check. If nothing has tripped, a burnt connection in one power point can cut off the points after it on the same run.

Is it safe to leave the dead circuit off until you arrive? Yes. Leave the tripped switch off, note its label, and keep the rest of the place running. If it is not urgent, a photo of the board through the quote form helps us arrive with the right parts.

Can a safety switch trip for no reason? They trip for a reason, but the reason can be intermittent, such as moisture in an outdoor point after rain or an appliance that only leaks when it warms up. Regular nuisance trips are worth tracing.

Do you cover my area? We work across Melbourne, with regular jobs through the south-east. Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula are among our service areas.