Fault Finding

With over 30 years of experience in electrical fault finding, you can rely on us to identify the problem

Electrical fault finding is the systematic testing of electrical cabling or devices using a process of elimination until the fault is located.

Electrical faults can play havoc with your home or business and can produce an unexpected annoyance when a fault leaves you with no power or lighting. Faults can become a safety concern or even a fire hazard depending on the type of fault involved. Contacting a licensed electrical contractor is the first and only thing you should do to deal with an electrical fault.

Experienced, Reliable Electrical Fault Finders

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What Type Of Electrical Fault is Occurring?

There are many types of faults that can appear on your electrical system but the ones we encounter most are due to the breakdown of electrical cabling or equipment such as an appliance.

Faulty appliances – when a customer calls and informs us that the safety switch on their switchboard wont stay on, our first instinct is an appliance. The majority of electrical faults relate back to various kitchen appliances which are quite often the main suspect. If we feel that this may be the problem, the customer will be advised to unplug all appliances and any other types of equipment such as kettles, toasters, microwaves, power boards or heaters. Undertaking this course of action may see the safety switch being able to be reset. The best course of action, is then to have a service technician from Iffland’s Electrical attend site and determine where the fault has occurred so as to ensure the safety trips does not trip off again.

Short circuits – have you ever heard a bang coming from a power-point, lighting point, circuit breaker or even the power-board, it’s more than likely you’ve just heard a short circuit. When the current on your live cable becomes exposed and makes contact with the earthing system [the safety on your electrical systems] you now have what is known as a ‘short circuit’. Short circuits can appear in many different ways but the obvious one is the breakdown on the cable insulation and this is exactly why we use RCBOs [ Safety Switches] and circuit breakers to protect us from this type of fault. Other known short circuits can result from storms or water damage, water in outdoor light fittings or outdoor power points.

Open circuit – any break on a live or neutral conductor is called an open circuit and can occur on a faulty switch or a break in the cabling.

Defective Safety Switch/Fuse – not only do we have faults on cabling or appliances but our protection devices such as RCBOs and circuit breakers can give way after a period of time. Like most electrical devices, safety switches or circuit breakers are no different, they always fail eventually due to age or a possible electrical surge has come down the main line. Safety switches should be fault finding tested and checked at a 6 month intervals for correct operation, there should be a small test button on each individual safety switch.

What can I do before calling a fault finding electrician?

Simple Checks You Can Do Yourself

On occasions you might not need to call a fault finding electrician in the event of an electrical fault. It might just be one of your appliances needs to be unplugged, or maybe a circuit breaker is tripping an RCD (safety switch). As briefly explained above, the first protocol should be to unplug all appliances if they are on the affected circuit and if the safety switch or circuit breaker remains down, call an electrician immediately.

Are There Too Many Appliances Running At The Same Time?

Protective devices such as circuit breakers or RCBOs will trip on overload when to many appliances run simultaneously. You can always try to unplug appliances to reduce the load on the safety switch or circuit breaker and try moving appliances to a different circuit to balance out the load. If your appliances continually trip on overload it might be best to add new circuits and safety switches to accommodate the load of the appliances. This procedure will reduce the risk of damage to your cables or appliances and even stop your home from being destroyed by a fire.

How long will it take to find an electrical fault?

Fault finding can vary in time but we can safely say that the majority of electrical faults can be found within the first hour on site. Once any faults are located and rectified, your power or lighting circuits should be back up and running as normal. Our electricians will know first hand where to commence working on the faulty circuit, once the relevant information has been attained from the customer.