What's the least dangerous option?

[DancingLions]

I have water coming through one of my kitchen lights. I'm with a housing association and they are supposedly sending an electrician to make it safe until whatever is leaking is fixed. But I have no faith they'll turn up as they were meant to come at the weekend and didn't.

I've frightened myself with google and it says you should turn the light off at the mains, not just at the wall. But just looked at the fuse box and the wired smoke alarm is on the same switch as the downstairs lights. So if I turn off the light at the mains, I have no smoke alarm!

So now wondering what to do when I go to bed later. Feeling a bit stressed about it so hoping someone can advise!

(There's a bedroom above the kitchen and the heating contractor has already been and said hes not sure its a heating issue, I need to check the boiler pressure in the morning to see.)

I know it’s scary, just to say this has happened to me twice, for some reason water seems to track towards light fittings. Obviously don’t turn that light on. Personally I did not turn off at the mains, just waited for leak to be fixed/ got it fixed and waited for wall to dry out. Someone more knowledgable about electrical issues might come along.

I lived in a house with a problematic shower once and every so often it would leak through the kitchen light downstairs. We turned that light off and carried on and it was fine. But I don't know if we were just lucky!

Thanks for your responses. It helps just to hear other people say it was fine! I think I'll just leave the light off as it is and hope for the best. Not sure the electrician will do much other than to tell me to keep it off even if he does come.

Do you have a bucket down op and how much water are we talking here?

I'd locate your stop tap for peace of mind so if it does get worse you are ready to turn off

Well as predicted, the electrician didn’t show up.

Its not a huge amount of water. It’s just coming down a drop at a time. There’s no wet patch on the ceiling. Just a slow drip from the light fitting. The pressure on the boiler has dropped so likely they will come today to look for the leak.

Does anyone know, once it’s fixed is it just a case of letting it dry out? If so, how long should I leave it? Can’t really rely on the HA for any help/advice 🙄

It will dry out. We had a leak from the toilet that dripped considerably but took a day to dry once the problem was fixed. Can you see underfloorboard where the leak is? They need to send a plumber

Can you get a floor board up and try to put a bowl under the dripping pipe?

The smoke alarm will probably have a back up battery for power cuts etc.

Good point, it probably does.

Well weirdly the leak seems to have stopped and the pressures gone back up on the boiler (it had only dropped a little) so I don't know now!

It's going to be a bit of a nightmare getting floorboards up due to furniture/carpet etc in that area, so if that has to happen I'm probably best off waiting for the HA to have someone actually booked in to fix whatever has caused it as I cant even be sure now what it is.

Turn it off and don't touch the light fitting it could still be live. We found some of ours had been wired the wrong way so were live with the switch off.

Hopefully if the plumber fixes the leak and the electrician checks the fitting, he should be able to dry off any obvious water in the fitting. I would leave it a day or so then when it's all safe (turn off the electricity) take the rose off and just check it isn't damp inside from any further water draining from somewhere, repeat until you are confident it's dry. Or ask the electrician for advice.