Three houses on our road in Langley Green have had electrical faults this year. Is that a coincidence?

Probably not. Langley Green was built quickly in the early fifties, so every house on your street was wired at the same time to the same spec. Cable insulation, fuse boards and accessories age at roughly the same rate, which is why faults in Crawley cluster street by street in a way they do not in towns that grew gradually. If your neighbours are having problems, it is worth getting your own installation inspected before it becomes your emergency.

My Tilgate house still has its original fuse box with rewirable fuses. Is that an emergency in itself?

Not on its own, but it is a warning sign. A rewireable board from the fifties or sixties has no RCD protection, so a fault that a modern board would disconnect in milliseconds can keep flowing. It also usually means the wiring behind it is original too. We can make any immediate fault safe on the night, then explain what a board upgrade or rewire would involve under current BS 7671 requirements. A house still on its original board is running out of margin.

We run a unit on Manor Royal. Can you attend a three-phase fault out of hours?

Three-phase and distribution-board work is core to what we do, and out of hours is exactly when commercial faults matter most. Tell us on the phone whether you have lost one phase or all three, and what is still running, and we will prioritise accordingly. One thing to do straight away: switch off three-phase machinery until the supply is checked, because a lost phase can quietly damage motors and compressors.

Our Maidenbower house is only from the nineties. Surely the wiring is fine?

Newer does not always mean fault-free. Nineties estates like Maidenbower were built with early split-load consumer units that are now approaching thirty years old, and the classic failure is nuisance RCD tripping: one aging appliance or a damp outdoor socket takes out half the house. The cabling itself is usually sound. Most calls we take from Maidenbower and Pound Hill are about tracing the one circuit or appliance pulling everything else down, which is a diagnosis job rather than a rewire.

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No lights or sockets anywhere

The most common call and often the quickest to resolve. When everything is out, the circuits are rarely the problem; something feeding them is. Proving where the supply stops is the first task, and if it stops before your board it becomes a job for the network crew.

No electricity in half the house

Where one residual device covers a group of ways, a single earth fault removes the whole group. We see the same board arrangements repeatedly around here, so the grouping is often familiar before the cover is off, which shortens the search considerably.

Whole kitchen has no power

Kitchens frequently have a way to themselves and hold more heating elements than any other room, so earth faults tend to begin there. Fitted units also conceal joints and spurs. We test the circuit end to end, then withdraw appliances in turn until it holds.

Trip switch won't stay up

The first question is which switch. A residual device that refuses is still seeing current escape to earth. A breaker that refuses has a short or a sustained overload on that one way. Identical symptom, two entirely different investigations.

MCB trips but the RCD stays on

That combination is genuinely useful. With nothing escaping to earth, overcurrent is what remains: either the demand exceeds the rating, or two conductors are touching. We measure the actual load first, then hunt the short if the demand does not account for it.

Tumble dryer keeps tripping the fuse box

Dryers run hot and humid, which is hard on an element and the insulation around it, and lint makes it worse over months. Running the machine from a socket on another circuit is a fast check: if that releases too, the fault belongs to the dryer.

The board doesn't get handed back in a state you can't use. Sound circuits are restored, faulty ones stay isolated, and you know exactly what's left to do.