LatestGuides4 min read
A floodlight bought on wattage alone and bolted up without much thought about angle is the single biggest cause of a security light nobody trusts. Here is what actually decides whether one works.
Read articleWorking out what is actually wrong, and how far you can get on your own before it needs an electrician.
4 min readLatest
A floodlight bought on wattage alone and bolted up without much thought about angle is the single biggest cause of a security light nobody trusts. Here is what actually decides whether one works.
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4 min read
Most immersion heater timers are still the mechanical kind, with small tappets pushed in around the dial to mark when it switches on and off. Here is how to read one properly, and where digital and smart replacements fit in.
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An immersion heater that has stopped heating water almost always comes down to one of three parts. Working through them in order finds the fault fastest, and tells you early on what you can safely check yourself.
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Storage heaters run on a cycle most people have never had explained to them: charge overnight on the cheap rate, then release that heat slowly the next day. Here is what the dials on the front actually do.
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5 min read
Most flickering lights are a harmless mismatch between an LED bulb and an old dimmer. Some are a loose connection that needs sorting properly. Here is how to tell which one you have.
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An EICR is a full check of the fixed wiring in a property, not a quick visual look. Here is what the inspection covers, who is required to have one, and what the report actually tells you.
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Not a full repair, usually. The first job is to make the installation safe and restore what can safely be restored — and to tell you honestly what is left.
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Storage heaters and immersions sit unused for months, then get asked for full output on the first cold evening. That first switch-on is when the faults show up.
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6 min read
They are simple machines with very few parts, which is good news — most faults are one component, and you can narrow it down yourself before anyone comes out.
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A breaker that will not stay in is telling you something. Here is how to narrow down the cause yourself, and the point at which you should stop and call an electrician.
Read itThe things worth acting on rather than living with, and how to tell which is which.
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Radio-interlinked and hard-wired both count as interlinked, but they are not the same thing, and the grade and category on the spec sheet decide what a let property actually needs.
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A steady chirp every thirty seconds is a very different message from a continuous alarm, and reading it correctly saves a night spent taking the thing off the ceiling.
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A weekly press of the test button is the right habit, but it does not prove what most people assume it proves. Here is what the button actually checks, and what still needs doing separately.
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Some faults need somebody tonight. Others are safe to leave until morning, and paying emergency rates for them is money wasted. Here is where the line actually sits.
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6 min read
Almost none of the emergencies we attend are exotic. They are the same handful of ordinary situations, and most of them give warning first.
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Hot weather changes the load on a house — fans, portable air conditioning, chargers left running overnight — and it changes how well anything sheds heat. Both matter.
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Lithium battery fires are fast, extremely hot and very hard to put out. Where you charge matters as much as what you charge with.
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4 min read
Rewireable fuses, no RCD protection, a plastic enclosure under the stairs. If your consumer unit shows any of these, it is not doing the job a modern one would.
Read itWhat drives the price of a job, and what a quote ought to have in it before you accept one.
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PAT testing is priced by the item or by the visit, and the two do not compare like for like. Here is how each method works, what actually moves the price, and why a flat with twenty items and an office with two hundred are different jobs.
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Government grants to replace storage heaters do exist, but which scheme is open, what it covers and who qualifies changes often enough that naming one here would be out of date before you rang about it. Here is how the schemes generally work, and what to do if you are not eligible.
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Storage heaters get blamed for high bills that are often down to the tariff, the age of the unit or a dial left on the wrong setting rather than the technology itself. Here is what actually decides the running cost.
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6 min read
EICR quotes vary far more than they should. Here is what goes into a proper inspection, why the cheapest quote is often the most expensive outcome, and what the codes on your report mean.
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6 min read
What drives the cost of a rewire, how partial rewires compare to full ones, and how to keep the disruption manageable while you are still living there.
Read itWhat the regulations actually require of you, by when, and what happens if the report comes back unsatisfactory.
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There is no single interval that applies to every appliance. How often PAT testing needs to happen depends on the equipment, the environment it's used in, and how much handling it gets — here is the shape of it, not a number picked at random.
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PAT testing is not named in any regulation as a requirement in its own right. What is a legal duty is keeping electrical equipment safe to use, and PAT testing is simply the standard way of proving that duty is being met.
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The rules say a landlord needs one every five years. Less is said about what actually happens during the visit itself, how long it takes, and what a tenant should expect on the day.
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Four codes decide whether an EICR passes and how urgently you have to act. Here is what each one actually means, and how to avoid overpaying for work the report never asked for.
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Five years for most rented homes, ten for the one you own — and even that can be shortened by what the inspector actually finds. Here is how the interval really works.
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The certificate is a legal requirement with a fixed deadline, and September is the worst month to discover you need remedial work before a tenancy starts.
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The rules for rented homes in England changed in 2020 and the penalties are steep. A plain-English summary of your obligations, deadlines, and what happens if the report comes back unsatisfactory.
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4 min read
Where alarms have to go, why interlinked mains-wired units beat battery ones, and what changed for landlords in 2022.
Read itReading about it only gets you so far. Ring us and we will tell you whether it needs an electrician today, or whether it can wait.
