No Power to Your Sockets? A Step by Step Diagnostic

Work through this in order and you will know within about five minutes whether this is a problem you can fix, a problem for your network operator, or a problem that needs an electrician. Do not skip steps. Half the callouts we attend for dead sockets are solved at step two or step six, and those are the two people skip.

Step 1: How Much Is Actually Dead?

One socket, one room, several rooms, or everything including the lights. That single answer tells you whether to look at the socket, the circuit, the consumer unit or the supply, so establish it before you touch anything. Walk round and test sockets in every room with something you know works.

Write down what works and what does not before you start switching things. It is surprisingly easy to lose track once you begin resetting breakers, and an electrician arriving to a clear description saves you an hour on the clock.

Step 2: Is It Your House or the Network?

Check this before anything else if the lights are off too, because if it is a network fault there is nothing wrong with your installation and nothing you or an electrician can do about it.

• Look outside. Are the neighbours' lights on? Are the street lights on?
• Look at your meter. Is the display lit, or completely dead?
• If you are on a prepayment meter, check the credit. It happens more often than anyone admits
• Call 105. It is free, it works from any phone, and it connects you to your local network operator

Step 3: What Has Actually Operated at the Board?

Look before you switch anything, because what has operated tells you what kind of fault you have. An MCB means overload or a short circuit. An RCD or RCBO means earth leakage. Nothing tripped at all means a broken circuit. Once you start resetting devices that information is gone.

Take a photograph of the board before you touch it. If you end up calling us, that photo tells us more than five minutes on the phone.

Step 4: What If an RCD or RCBO Has Tripped?

Reset it once, and only once. If it holds, note carefully what was switched on or being used at the moment it went, because that is your prime suspect. If it will not hold, or it goes again within minutes, there is a genuine earth fault and it needs finding properly.

Do not keep resetting it. An RCD that keeps operating has measured something real, and repeatedly forcing it back on is overriding the device that is there to stop somebody getting a shock.

We have written a full guide to what causes an RCD to trip repeatedly, covering the eleven things we actually find on callouts, from rodents through to a slug bridging the terminals inside a socket. If your RCD is the problem, start there.

Step 5: What If an MCB Has Tripped?

That means overload or a short circuit on one specific circuit, not an earth fault. Switch it fully off first, then back on. Many will not reset from the midway position and people conclude the breaker is broken when it is not.

• If it holds, you overloaded that circuit. Work out what was running and spread the load
• If it trips instantly with nothing plugged in, there is a fault in the fixed wiring
• If it trips only when one appliance is used, that appliance is the problem
• If it trips instantly and repeatedly, stop. Leave it off and call someone

Step 6: Why Are My Sockets Dead When Nothing Has Tripped?

Because the circuit is broken rather than protected. If every device at the board is in the on position and sockets are still dead, nothing has operated, so nothing has detected a fault. The cable path itself is interrupted somewhere between the board and the socket, and that is a different problem entirely. This is the one people find most confusing and it is common.

A broken ring

Most UK socket circuits are wired as a ring final circuit under BS 7671, out from the board and back to it again. If one connection comes loose or a conductor snaps, the ring becomes two dead ends. Often everything keeps working, because the sockets are still fed from one direction, and nobody notices for months. If the break is in the wrong place, or a second one develops, part of the circuit goes dead with nothing tripping.

A loose or snapped connection in a socket

Everything downstream of the loose connection dies. This is why a run of sockets on one wall goes and the rest of the house is fine. The usual cause is a termination that was never tightened properly, or a cable cut so short at first fix that the conductor has been under tension for years and finally snapped at the terminal.

A spur that has lost its feed

Sockets added later are often spurred from an existing one, sometimes in a completely different room. If the parent socket develops a fault, everything hanging off it goes dead and there is no obvious connection between the two.

Step 7: Have You Checked the Fused Spurs?

A blown fuse in a fused connection unit is one of the most common causes of a single dead socket or appliance, and almost nobody checks it. An FCU is the small plate with a switch and often a tiny fuse carrier, used for boilers, extractor fans, immersion heaters, under-cabinet lights and frequently one or two kitchen sockets.

The fuse inside it, usually 3A or 13A, blows exactly like a plug fuse. When it does, everything beyond it goes dead while the rest of the circuit carries on perfectly.

• Look for small switched plates, particularly in the kitchen, airing cupboard and near the boiler
• Check whether the switch has been knocked off. That alone solves a good number of these
• If there is a fuse carrier, turn the circuit off at the board before opening it
• Replace like for like. A 3A fuse is there for a reason and fitting 13A instead is not a fix
• If the new fuse blows immediately, there is a fault. Stop

Step 8: Is It the Socket Itself?

Test it properly before you assume. Plug in something you have just confirmed works elsewhere, not the appliance that was in it when it stopped, because the appliance may be the whole problem.

Then look at the faceplate. Any browning, any melting around the pin holes, any warmth, and it comes out of service now. A socket that has been running hot has usually been running hot for a while.

Faceplates do also just fail internally with nothing visible at all. It is a genuine cause and it is a quick fix, but finding which one is the actual job. Replacing a socket takes minutes once you know which one.

Step 9: What Changed Just Before It Happened?

Drilling, flooring, a leak, a new appliance or another trade in the house. The cause is usually something you already know about, and this one question solves more dead socket faults than any test we carry.

• Drilling, shelves, a wall mounted television, curtain poles
• New flooring, particularly anything nailed or screwed down
• Any leak, overflow or damp patch, however small
• A new appliance, especially anything with a heating element
• Work by another trade, including plumbers and joiners
• Noises in the loft or under the floor

If there was a flash or a bang while you were drilling, you have almost certainly gone through a cable. Say that when you ring. It is one of the quickest faults to repair because the location is already known.

What Do We Find Most Often?

A blown fuse in a fused spur, a loose connection inside a socket, and a cable damaged by DIY. Those three cover a large share of what we attend for dead sockets, and none of them is at the consumer unit, which is where everybody looks first.

The pattern worth noticing is that the fastest fixes are the ones people never check, and the slowest is the one that shows no symptoms at all until it does.

How Much Does It Cost to Get It Fixed?

£80 an hour Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm. Weekends are £120 an hour between 9am and 1pm, and outside those hours it is £150 an hour. There is no callout charge on top.

Most dead socket faults are found and repaired inside the first hour, particularly the ones where something obvious changed. A broken ring takes longer because it has to be traced. We carry common accessories, so most jobs are done in a single visit rather than a return trip for parts.

What If I Still Have an Old Fuse Box?

Then a blown fuse wire is a likely cause, and the board itself is the bigger issue. Rewirable fuses give no earth leakage protection at all, which means no RCD, which means nothing is watching for the fault that actually hurts people.

A consumer unit with an RCBO on every circuit is £700 fitted, including the 18th Edition certificate and Part P notification to building control. We fit Type A devices throughout, which detect the pulsating DC leakage that induction hobs and EV chargers produce and older Type AC devices can miss.

It also makes every future fault far easier to find, because a trip tells you immediately which circuit is at fault instead of taking out half the house.

Do I Just Need More Sockets?

If the honest answer to this whole problem is that you are running everything off extension leads, then yes. Overloaded trailing leads are a real fire risk and they are the reason a lot of these circuits are struggling in the first place.

Additional socket points are £80 each during a rewire and priced individually as a standalone job. If the installation is more than twenty five years old and there are not enough sockets anywhere, it may be worth reading about when a rewire becomes the better answer than adding to what is already there.

When Should I Stop and Call Someone?

Stop if a breaker trips instantly every time, if nothing has tripped but sockets are dead, if there is any smell of burning, any scorch mark, any warmth, or if a replacement fuse blows straight away. Also stop if you have worked through all nine steps and found nothing, because the next stage needs test equipment.

If you rent the property out, a recurring dead circuit is something that will appear on an EICR, and landlords in England must hold a satisfactory report renewed at least every five years. Better found now than at inspection.

For electrical emergencies in Liverpool we are available 24 hours a day and aim to be with you within 30 minutes. For faults that are not urgent we offer same day appointments across Liverpool, and out to the Wirral, St Helens, Warrington and Formby.