Your Electrical and Emergency Electrician Questions, Answered

Treat it as an emergency if you see smoke, smell burning, notice sparking, scorch marks or a hot socket, have water near electrics, find exposed wires, or lose power to the whole property or an essential circuit. If there is fire or someone has had a shock, call 999 first. For anything else, call TRACEFORM and we will tell you honestly how urgent it is.

Our engineers are typically on site in under 60 minutes across Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge and Peterborough, and in under 2 hours in London. When you call, we check your full postcode against engineer availability and confirm a realistic arrival time before anyone sets off, so you are never left guessing.

Yes. The emergency line is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including nights, weekends and bank holidays. You speak to the TRACEFORM team directly, and attendance is arranged straight away when the fault is urgent.

We agree the callout price with you on the phone before an engineer travels. Once the fault is found, any repair is explained and priced for your approval before work starts, so there are no surprise charges. The price depends on the time of day and the work needed.

Keep everyone away from the affected area and do not touch damaged sockets, cables or the consumer unit. If it is safe, switch off the affected circuit or the main switch with dry hands. Do not keep resetting a switch that trips, and only unplug appliances that are not hot, wet or damaged.

Try one reset only: unplug everything on that circuit, reset the RCD, then plug appliances back in one at a time to see which one trips it. If it trips with nothing plugged in, trips again straight away or will not reset, leave it off and call an electrician. Never tape, bypass or force a tripping device.

Check whether neighbours and street lights still have power. If they are off too, it is probably a network fault, so call the free national power cut line on 105 for updates. If only your property is affected, look for a tripped switch at the consumer unit and call us if it will not reset.

Yes. TRACEFORM is NICEIC registered and fully insured, and our electricians work to BS 7671, the 18th Edition wiring regulations. Repairs are tested before we leave, and you receive the appropriate certificate or written report for the work carried out.

We cover all ten Greater Manchester boroughs: Manchester, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. We also cover Liverpool, London, Cambridge and Peterborough, where our own local engineers are based. Give us your full postcode and we will confirm attendance for your exact address.

Yes. We attend rented homes for landlords and agents, coordinate access with tenants and provide documented findings. We also support shops, offices, restaurants and industrial units where downtime is costly. Emergency, out-of-hours and planned work can all be booked.

Yes, by WhatsApp, as long as you can take them from a safe position without touching damaged equipment, opening covers or going near water. Photos help us prepare the right parts and advice, but they never replace testing on site.

We always make the installation safe before we leave. If a repair needs parts or more time, we explain what we found, isolate anything unsafe, restore power wherever it is safe to do so and give you a clear written quote for the follow-up work.

Yes. Alongside emergency callouts we carry out consumer unit replacements, EICR inspections, rewiring, new circuits, lighting, EV charger installation, CCTV and door entry. Planned work is quoted after a survey, and certification is provided on completion.