Electrical safety

Remember that electricity can be dangerous. Do not try to fix loose wires yourself; always use a registered electrician.

If you experience a loss of power in your home?

If you have a sudden power cut

• Check to see if your neighbour seems to have power still, it could be an outage in just your home. If it is check your consumer unit (fuse box) to see if a switch has been tripped – see below.
• If your neighbourhood seems to be without power too, you should phone 105 (which will put you in touch with your local electricity network operator)
• Make sure you have a torch to hand (with spare batteries). If you decide to use candles to light your rooms, please make sure you use them responsibly (never burn a candle near anything that could catch fire, keep them out of reach of children/pets, always make sure candles are fully extinguished before leaving your home or going to bed).
• Keep your fridge and freezer closed to help them stay cold.
• Check on elderly or vulnerable neighbours.

How do I operate my consumer unit?

A consumer unit is your property's fuse box. When a fuse is tripped in your home one of the Trip Switches will flip to the opposite position. Each switch should be labelled with the area of the property, so if an individual switch is tripped, this will be the only area of the house that will be affected.

The main switch – This will turn off all power to the property.

The MCB trip switches (Miniature Circuit Breaker) – This provides protection to the circuit, defined by the circuit label (a modern replacement for a fuse).

The RCD (Residual Current Device) – This provides further protection for the MCBs. It detects imbalances in the electrical current.

The RCBO trip switches – This is an MCB and RCD combined into one switch. It provides protection to the circuit.