Electrical safety

Electricity can be dangerous. Please don’t try to fix loose wires yourself; always use a registered electrician.

There are some basic visual checks you can do to improve electrical safety in the home. Visit the Electrical Safety First website to see a list of these checks or check you’re not overloading your sockets.

If you have a sudden power cut

Check to see if your neighbours have power. If your whole neighbourhood is affected, phone 105, which will put you in touch with your local electricity network operator.

• Check on any elderly or vulnerable neighbours.
• Keep your fridge and freezer closed to help them stay cold.
• Make sure you have a torch to hand (and spare batteries). If you decide to use candles to light your rooms, please keep them away from anything that could catch fire and well out of reach of children and pets. Make sure candles are fully extinguished before leaving home or going to bed.
• If the outage is just your home, check your fuse box (consumer unit) to see if a switch has tripped – see below.

Your fuse box/consumer unit

Your home’s consumer unit is sometimes called a fuse box. When a fuse is tripped, one of the trip switches will flip to the opposite direction. Each switch should be labelled with the area of the property, so if an individual switch is tripped, this will show the area of your home that is affected.

Electrical safety tests

We visit all our properties every five years to carry out an electrical safety test. We will get in touch with you before your re-inspection date, to arrange an appointment for our electrical team to attend.

Or, if you prefer, you can call us to book the test yourself. Your re-inspection date can be found on your fuse box.