When You Need an Emergency Electrician in Reigate

Published August 2026 | Emergency Electrician Reigate

Electrical emergencies are one of those situations where the first few minutes genuinely matter. Whether you're dealing with a burning smell from a socket, a total power loss late at night, or something more alarming like sparks or a shock, knowing what to do at each stage can protect your home and your family. This guide walks you through the timeline from the moment something goes wrong to the point where your home is safe and fully inspected.

In the First 10 Minutes

The single most important thing you can do in the immediate aftermath of an electrical problem is remove the risk of injury or fire. Here is what our engineers recommend you do straight away:

1. Switch off the mains. Go to your consumer unit (the fuse box, usually in a hallway, under the stairs, or in a cupboard) and flip the main isolator switch to off. This cuts power to your entire property. If you can't safely reach it, leave it and get out.
2. Don't touch anything near water. If there's been a flood, a leaking pipe near electrics, or you've spilled something significant, treat every socket and switch as live until a professional says otherwise. Water and electricity are a fatal combination.
3. Call 999 if anyone has received a shock. Even a minor electric shock can cause internal injuries or heart rhythm disturbances that don't show immediately. Get emergency medical help. Do not try to pull someone away from a live source with your hands - use something non-conductive like a dry wooden broom handle.
4. Get everyone out if you smell burning. An electrical fire can spread inside walls and ceilings faster than you can see it. If there's a persistent burning smell, a smell of melting plastic, or you can see smoke, evacuate the property and call 999 from outside.
5. Don't reset tripped breakers repeatedly. A circuit breaker that keeps tripping is telling you something is wrong. Resetting it over and over risks a fire or a more serious fault developing. Leave it tripped.

In Reigate and the surrounding parts of Surrey, the Fire and Rescue Service treats electrical fires as some of the most serious domestic incidents they attend. Getting out early is always the right call when in doubt.

Within the First Hour

Once you've made the immediate environment safe, you can start to assess what you're actually dealing with. There's a meaningful difference between a nuisance fault and a genuine emergency, and understanding which you have shapes your next steps.

A genuine electrical emergency is any of the following: sparks from a socket or fitting, burning smell without an obvious source, exposed live wiring, a shock received by anyone in the household, complete power loss to your property during normal conditions, or water ingress near electrical components. These require an emergency call-out, typically within the hour.

A serious but non-critical fault includes a single circuit that has tripped and won't reset, a socket that's stopped working, or lights flickering persistently. These still warrant a same-day call but may not require an emergency electrician at 2am.

While you're waiting for help, make a note of:

• Exactly what happened and when it started
• Which rooms or circuits are affected
• Whether you'd done anything unusual beforehand (plugged in a new appliance, had work done recently, noticed any odd smells over previous days)
• The age of your consumer unit if you know it

This information saves time when the electrician arrives and helps them diagnose the fault faster. Our engineers using the Voltrade GoFIX diagnostic tool can cross-reference reported symptoms with common fault patterns before they even walk through the door, but the more detail you can give, the better.

Same Day

When you call an emergency electrician in Reigate, be clear about what you observed. Tell them whether you've isolated the mains, whether anyone has been hurt, and whether there's any visible damage. A good electrician will ask these questions anyway, but having the answers ready speeds up triage.

In terms of cost, emergency call-outs in the UK typically range from 80 to 150 pounds just for the call-out fee, with labour on top at roughly 60 to 100 pounds per hour. If the fault turns out to be minor (a failed socket or a loose connection at the consumer unit), you might be looking at 150 to 250 pounds all in. More involved faults, or work that requires parts, will push costs higher. A consumer unit replacement, for example, typically costs between 400 and 750 pounds depending on the size of the installation.

Before the electrician arrives, prepare to give them access to your consumer unit, and if you have any electrical installation certificates from previous work on the property, find those. They're usually A4 documents with circuit details on them. Homeowners in parts of Reigate and wider Surrey with older properties (pre-1970s) may not have these, which is worth flagging to the electrician.

If you have children or pets, make sure they're kept away from the area the electrician will be working in. Emergency electrical work often involves opening up consumer units, isolating circuits, and potentially inspecting cable runs in walls or ceilings.

The Repair Visit

When an emergency electrician arrives, their first priority is identifying and isolating the fault. This typically follows a set sequence.

They'll carry out a visual inspection of the consumer unit, looking for signs of overheating, damaged breakers, or poor connections. Then they'll move to the affected area of the property - whether that's a single room, a circuit, or the whole installation - and use test equipment to trace where the fault lies.

For a simple fault like a damaged socket or a failed circuit breaker, the repair itself can take under an hour. For something more complex, like tracking down a wiring fault inside a wall or diagnosing an intermittent issue with a circuit, it may take several hours. Our engineers are trained to give you a realistic estimate of scope before they start work, so you're not hit with surprises.

At the end of the visit, any notifiable work (which includes replacing a consumer unit or carrying out work in a kitchen or bathroom) must be certified under Part P of the Building Regulations. Your electrician should provide you with a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate or an Electrical Installation Certificate depending on the scope of work. If they don't mention this, ask for it. You'll need it if you ever sell your home.

Typical repair visit times for common emergency faults in Reigate properties:

• Failed consumer unit MCB: 30 to 60 minutes
• Damaged socket replacement: 30 to 45 minutes
• Fault tracing on a dead circuit: 1 to 3 hours
• Consumer unit replacement: 4 to 8 hours

The Following Week

Once the emergency has been resolved, there are a few things worth doing in the days that follow.

First, test your residual current devices (RCDs). These are the switches in your consumer unit that look different from the main breakers - they usually have a "T" or "Test" button. Press the test button on each one. It should trip immediately. Reset it and confirm everything still works. This is a check you should be doing every three to six months anyway.

Second, review what caused the fault. If it was an overloaded circuit because too many high-draw appliances were running at once, look at how you're distributing loads across the circuits in your home. Extension leads daisy-chained together, or multiple heaters running off the same circuit, are among the most common causes of emergency electrical call-outs our engineers attend in Reigate.

Third, keep the certificate you were issued. Store it with your property documents. If your home is in a Surrey conservation area or has been through any unusual work, you may want to check with your local authority whether any additional sign-off is needed, though for standard domestic repairs this rarely applies.

Long Term

Most electrical emergencies are preventable. The single most effective thing you can do is have a periodic electrical installation condition report (EICR) carried out on your home. For owner-occupiers, every ten years is the standard recommendation; for landlords, every five years is a legal requirement.

Properties in Reigate built before the 1980s may have wiring that was originally installed to standards that are now considered outdated. Older systems often lack the RCD protection that modern installations require. If your consumer unit still has rewireable fuses rather than modern MCBs, or if the wiring runs in your property are rubber-insulated (rubber insulation deteriorates with age), these are strong indicators that a full or partial rewire may be needed. A rewire for a typical 3-bedroom semi-detached house in Surrey typically costs between 3,000 and 6,000 pounds.

Beyond the installation itself, regular checks to look out for include:

• Sockets or switches that feel warm to the touch
• Persistent flickering lights on a single circuit
• A circuit breaker that trips more than once without an obvious cause
• Scorch marks or discolouration around sockets or fittings
• An unusual smell that only occurs when certain appliances are in use

None of these should be ignored. They're all early-warning signs that something within the installation is under stress. Catching a wiring fault before it becomes an emergency call-out is cheaper, less disruptive, and considerably safer.

Timeline Questions

How quickly can an emergency electrician reach me in Reigate?

Response times vary depending on the time of day and the electrician's current workload, but most emergency electrical services aim to reach you within one to two hours for genuinely urgent faults. In Reigate and across Surrey, there's a reasonable concentration of qualified electricians, so out-of-hours cover is typically available. That said, response times can extend during busy periods or severe weather, so calling as early as possible is always worth doing even if you think it can wait until morning.

Is my home safe to stay in while I wait for the electrician?

If you've isolated the mains at the consumer unit and there's no fire risk, burning smell, or evidence of a major fault like exposed wiring or water near electrics, it's usually safe to remain in the property. Use torches rather than candles. If there's any doubt - any smell of burning, any sign of heat in the walls or ceilings, or any visible damage to wiring - err on the side of leaving and waiting outside or at a neighbour's. Your safety matters more than the inconvenience.

What if my whole street has lost power - do I still need an emergency electrician?

A street-wide power cut is a network fault managed by UK Power Networks, which covers most of Surrey including Reigate. Check their outage map or call their 24-hour line to confirm. If the outage is theirs, there's nothing an electrician can do and no call-out is needed. However, if your neighbours still have power but you don't, the fault is almost certainly within your own installation, and a call-out is appropriate. A common cause of this is a failed main fuse at the head of your supply, which requires the network operator to attend alongside a registered electrician.

Will my home insurance cover an emergency electrician call-out?

Many home insurance policies include emergency home cover that extends to electrical faults, but the terms vary significantly. Some cover call-out costs only; others cover parts and labour up to a certain limit. Check your policy documents before calling an electrician, as some insurers require you to use their approved contractors. If your policy doesn't include emergency cover, standalone home emergency insurance typically costs between 50 and 120 pounds per year and can be worth adding if your property is older or if you've had electrical issues previously.