Home electrics: what you can touch, what you can’t

Meet your consumer unit

Open the flap on your consumer unit (the modern fuse box, usually in the hall, garage or under the stairs) and you will find one big switch and a row of smaller ones. The big one is the main switch: it cuts power to the whole house. The small ones are MCBs, miniature circuit breakers, one per circuit: downstairs sockets, upstairs lights, cooker, and so on.

Somewhere in the row you will usually see one or two wider switches called RCDs. The difference is what each is watching for. An MCB trips when a circuit is asked to carry more current than it can handle, as in an overload or a short. An RCD trips when current starts leaking out of the circuit, through a damaged cable or, worst case, through a person, and it reacts in a few hundredths of a second. If a switch has dropped, our reset guide walks you through what to do.

What you can safely do yourself

The homeowner list is short, but it covers a surprising share of electrical call-outs: resetting a tripped breaker or RCD, changing bulbs, swapping the fuse in a 13A plug, testing with a plug-in socket tester, and unplugging anything that misbehaves. A dead socket or a light that stays dark after a new bulb can usually be diagnosed, if not always fixed, without a screwdriver.

Notice what is not on the list: anything that involves removing a face plate, or opening the consumer unit beyond flipping its switches. The moment a screwdriver touches fixed wiring, you are in electrician territory. That is partly law and mostly physics: 230 volts does not offer second chances, and the wet-hands rule (never touch plugs, switches or sockets with wet hands) exists for the same reason.

Part P, in plain English

Part P of the Building Regulations covers electrical work in homes in England and Wales. Its core idea: certain jobs are notifiable, meaning building control must know about them and the finished work must be certificated. New circuits, consumer unit changes and most work in bathrooms or outdoors all qualify.

A registered electrician (NICEIC, NAPIT and similar schemes) can self-certify notifiable work, which is why hiring one is cheaper and faster than DIY-plus-building-control, before you even reach the safety argument. The certificate matters later too: buyers’ solicitors ask for these.

Warning signs that jump the queue

Most electrical faults announce themselves politely: a trip, a dead socket, a flickering light. A few signs skip the queue. A fishy or hot-plastic smell, a socket or plug that feels warm, scorch marks around a face plate, and buzzing or crackling from a switch all point to a loose or failing connection. Loose connections make heat, and heat inside walls is how electrical fires start.

The response is calm and short: stop using the socket or switch, turn that circuit off at the consumer unit if you can identify it, and book an electrician now rather than this month. None of this needs drama. It is a known failure with a known fix.

When the whole house goes dark

First question: is it you or the network? If the neighbours and the street lights are out too, it is a power cut. Call 105, the free national line that connects you to your local network operator, and work through our power cut checklist. If it is only you, the main switch or an RCD has probably dropped, and the reset routine applies.

Partial power is different again. If half the sockets are dead but the lights work, that is a tripped circuit rather than a supply problem, and the elimination method (unplug everything, reset, replug one at a time) finds the culprit appliance more often than not.

The paperwork and the long game

Electrics age quietly. Connections loosen, standards move on, and a consumer unit drifts out of date without a single dramatic moment, which is why the industry relies on periodic inspection instead of waiting for symptoms. The inspection is called an EICR: legally required every five years for rented homes, and sensible every ten years, or at purchase, for everyone else. ‘It still works’ and ‘it is fine’ are different claims, and only one of them is tested.

Between inspections, the habits that matter most are load habits. A house running on extension leads needs more sockets, not more adaptors. And when you add kit like a video doorbell or garden power, do it through the front door: proper parts, proper installer, certificate filed. Tickover’s documents vault keeps those certificates attached to the property, alongside the reminders in your maintenance calendar.

What electricians cost

As a guide, electricians outside London charge £45–£65 an hour, with day rates around £250–£350; London and the South East run higher, typically £68–£95 an hour. Small jobs often carry a minimum charge of an hour or a fixed call-out, so it pays to batch the little things (the dead socket, the buzzing switch, the extra double socket) into one visit. For anything bigger than a day’s work, get two or three quotes.