Need an electrician on Christmas Day or a bank holiday?

Holidays put more load on home electrics than almost any other time of year. There are extra lights, a full oven for hours, heaters in spare rooms and chargers in every socket. When something goes wrong on Christmas Day or a bank holiday, the hardest part is often deciding whether it needs someone out now or can wait.

This guide walks through that decision. If you do need help outside normal hours, our out of hours electrician page explains how a request works. We do not make promises about arrival times. Availability over holidays depends on demand and where you are.

First: is it your home or the street?

Before anything else, look outside. Are the street lights on? Do your neighbours have lights? If your whole road is dark, it is a power cut and no electrician can fix it.

• Call 105. It is free and connects you to the network operator for your postcode.
• Or check the UK Power Networks power cut map. You can also call them on 0800 31 63 105.
• In Ealing and Hounslow the network is run by SSEN, not UK Power Networks, as the Mayor’s answer to the London Assembly sets out. 105 still gets you through.

Our guide power cut or a fault in your home? covers this check in more detail.

Common holiday faults

What happens	Likely cause	Can it wait?
Electrics trip when the tree lights go on	Fault in a light set or a wet outdoor set	Yes, if it stays on with the lights unplugged
Electrics trip when the oven has been on a while	Oven element breaking down	Usually, if the rest of the house holds with the oven off
Extension lead or plug feels hot	Too many high power items on one lead	Unplug now. Call if the socket itself is hot or marked
Burning smell near a socket or the consumer unit	Loose connection overheating	No. Switch off at the main switch if safe and call
No power at all, neighbours have power	Main switch, main RCD or a supply fault at your meter	Call, especially with vulnerable people at home
Water coming through a ceiling light	Leak above	No. Switch off and call

What you can safely do yourself

You do not need tools for any of this, and you should not open anything.

1. Unplug the newest things first. Extra lights, heaters and the second fridge in the garage are the usual suspects.
2. Reset the switch that tripped. On your consumer unit, find the switch that is down and push it back up.
3. Plug things back in one at a time. If the switch trips again when one item goes in, you have found the fault. Leave that item unplugged.
4. Spread the load. Do not run a kettle, air fryer and heater from one extension lead.
5. If a switch will not stay up with everything unplugged, leave it off. That points to a fault in the fixed wiring, which is a job for an electrician.

Extension leads and festive lights

London Fire Brigade says it has attended 26,376 electrical fires in London since 2017. Its advice on electrical items covers overloaded extension leads, cheap chargers and items that are not fit for the job. A few points that matter most at Christmas:

• Do not plug one extension lead into another.
• Keep leads uncoiled when in use. A coiled lead can heat up.
• Use outdoor lights that are made for outdoor use, and plug them into a socket protected by an RCD.
• Switch lights off and unplug them when you go to bed or go out.
• Look for scorch marks, hot plugs and flickering. LFB lists these as warning signs of a potential electrical problem.

When it really is an emergency

Some things should not wait for the holiday to end:

• A burning smell, smoke, scorch marks or crackling from a socket, switch or the consumer unit
• Sparking from a socket that does not stop
• A socket, switch or plug that is too hot to touch
• Any shock, or a tingle from a tap or radiator
• Water reaching a light fitting, socket or the consumer unit
• No power at all with someone at home who relies on medical equipment, or with very young children or older people in a cold home

If someone has had a shock, do not touch them until the power is off. Switch off at the mains if you can, then phone 999. NHS inform has the full first aid steps.

If you rely on electricity for medical equipment, ask about the Priority Services Register before the next holiday. Our guide to the Priority Services Register explains how it works.

Making it safe until after the holiday

Very often an out of hours visit makes the fault safe and leaves the full repair for a normal working day. That might mean isolating one circuit, removing a damaged socket front, or disconnecting a faulty appliance so the rest of the house can stay on.

You can do a version of this yourself for faults that are not dangerous. Switch off the circuit that keeps tripping, label it so nobody switches it back on, and keep using the rest of the home. A cold oven on Boxing Day is annoying. A circuit forced back on over and over is how small faults become fires.

Homes that struggle most over the holidays

Older and more crowded homes feel the extra load first. The VOA’s housing stock figures show that 29% of London homes were built before 1919, and 57% are flats or maisonettes. In a converted Victorian flat, there may only be a handful of sockets in each room. That is when extension leads start doubling up.

In a borough like Hackney, where 82% of homes are flats, it is common to find a whole living room running from one double socket. If that is your home, the holiday is a good time to notice where you rely on leads, and ask for more sockets to be added afterwards.

Before you call

Have this ready. It helps whoever you speak to judge how urgent the job is:

• Your postcode
• What you can see, smell or hear
• Which switch on the consumer unit is off, if any
• Whether anyone at home is vulnerable
• Whether you live in a house or a flat, and if a flat, whether the hallway lights are on

You can send us those details through the out of hours request form. The price is confirmed after a look at the job.