Electrical emergencies are no joke, especially when there is smoke involved. In situations like these, it’s important to act quickly. Even though DIY people are handy with the tools and capable of fixing a lot of things on their own, electrical emergencies should be left to the professionals.

In case you are not a professional electrician, we have prepared an in-depth guide for what to do in an electrical emergency at your home. There are some issues you can resolve yourself, but if ever unsure, always call out a professional from Vertechs Electric, or any other professionals that are closer. Electrical concerns are serious and need to be treated with care to avoid bigger problems or injury. But first, let’s identify what is considered an electrical emergency.

Burning odour

If you can smell a carbon-burning odour in your home, the chances are that some wire has caught fire. This is a very dangerous situation, and you should act quickly. Burning wires can bring a whole building down if not addressed immediately. Other than switching off the main circuit breaker and calling the fire department, there is not much that you can do here.

Smoke coming from an electrical outlet

Another indicator of an electrical malfunction that needs an immediate attention is smoke coming from an electrical outlet. The saying goes, where there’s smoke there’s fire. So, if you spot even the slightest sign of smoke, you should unplug the electrical socket right away. In most cases, that should be enough. However, if the smoke persists and starts to spread, switch off the main power supply and call the firefighters.

Buzzing noises from a breaker box

Buzzing or any other type of noise coming from a breaker box is usually a bad sign and should not be ignored. Even though it might be a small malfunction, you should address it immediately. Otherwise, in case of an overload, your breaker switch may fail to activate, causing damage to your appliances. Under no circumstances should you attempt to fix this problem by yourself. Instead, find a professional emergency electrician from Sydney, and let them take care of it.

What to do?

Now that you know what the electrical emergencies are, we can talk how you should behave if you find yourself in one. First, if you are not a professional electrician don’t attempt to fix anything by yourself. You need to leave handling electricity to someone like this highly qualified electrician Werribee has to offer, for example. As we said before, we understand that you are skilful with your hands and around the house. However, electricity and wires are not something that you should mess with if you are not properly trained. You can cause even more damage and most importantly, you can hurt yourself badly.

So, the rules are simple when it comes to electrical emergencies. If you see smoke, that means there is fire. In this situation, you should first call the fire department. Second, get everybody out of the house and wait for firefighters to come. If the smoke is not too severe, you can turn off the main power supply to stop further damage.

Furthermore, if you want to try to douse the fire, don’t do it with water. As you probably already know, water and fire don’t mix well together. You will only feed the fire if you try to extinguish it this way. However, if you have a certified chemical fire extinguisher, you can try to put it out. Just remember to switch off the main power supply or the fire won’t stop spreading.

Important notice! If the fire has started around the main circuit area, don’t attempt to switch it off. You will not only burn yourself, but you might get electrified as well.

On the other hand, in situations where there is no sign of smoke or fire, and you are just hearing buzzing sounds or your power went out, there is no need to call the fire department. Calling an emergency electrician will be enough (if you’re in Georgia, you could consider clicking here to find out about a company that would be able to help you). In case of an emergency, they will arrive at your location within an hour regardless of the time of the day.

And that is about it for our electrical emergency guide. Sure, there are more electrical emergencies, but these three are the most common ones when it comes to residential problems. It’s all about acting quickly when it comes to any kind of emergency, and knowing who to call first can be a difference between total disaster and minimal damage.