The faults that bring us out at night are rarely unusual. Over enough call-outs the same causes come round again, and the useful thing about that is how avoidable most of them are.
Overloaded extension leads
A four-way extension is rated for a total, not for four appliances. Anything with a heating element — a heater, a kettle, an iron — draws a very large share of that total on its own. Two of them on one lead is how extension leads catch fire.
Worse is the lead plugged into another lead. Each is rated on the assumption it is plugged into a socket, and daisy-chaining removes the protection that rating assumed.
Coiled cable under load
An extension reel left wound on its drum cannot lose heat. Run something heavy off it and the cable can reach a temperature that damages the insulation while the outside still looks perfectly normal. Unwind the reel fully, every time, even for a short job.
Sockets that are warm, discoloured or loose
A socket should be at room temperature. Warmth means resistance, resistance means heat, and heat at a connection gets worse rather than better. Browning around the pin holes is the same story further along. A plug that falls out under its own weight has worn contacts and will arc.
Bathroom and outdoor mistakes
- Ordinary extension leads run into bathrooms or out into the garden.
- Outdoor sockets and lights not rated for it, or whose seals have perished.
- Garden cable buried at spade depth with no protection over it.
- Portable heaters used in a bathroom, which is never acceptable regardless of the rating.
Ignoring a trip that keeps happening
A breaker that trips repeatedly is not a nuisance to be worked around. It is protection operating, and it is the cheapest warning you will ever get. Resetting it again and again removes the warning without removing the cause.
An installation nobody has looked at
Wiring degrades slowly and invisibly. An inspection every ten years for an owner-occupied home, or every five for a rented one, turns a future emergency into a job you can plan. If you have no idea when yours was last tested, that is itself the answer.
If you are unsure, it is always cheaper to ask than to guess. Give us a call and we will tell you straight.