Help - is anyone an electrician, or know anything about electrics??

[SixSpotBonfire]

DH has just phoned me in a state because none of the sockets in our house are working (although the lights are working).

Presumably it can't be a power cut if the lights are working?

What can have gone wrong? He has the washing machine full of water, and the freezers sitting full of food! Is there anything he can do, or do we need an electrician?

I might be wrong but I think there is a switch on the fuse box for sockets. Has he tried that?

he needs to check the circuit breakers on the fusebox. The lights are usually on a sepaate electrical circui from the mains power.

go to the fuse box and see if the socket switch has tripped - it's on a separate ring to the lights, which is why they can still be on.

What the others said.
The switch needs flicked or the fuse wire replaced if you've got an old box.

if the circuit breaker has "popped" there will be a button sticking out that he has to push back in to restore power, but if you have an electrical fault in anything that is switched on it will pop straight out again (this happened to me when my washing machine broke)

He says that none of the switches on the fuse box has tripped?

best get an electrician then - do you have a mouse problem?

I saw one a few weeks ago but have seen nothing since. Do you think one might have nibbled through some wiring somewhere? Would that not trip the fuses though?

Mouse chewing damagge wouldn't necessarily mean a tripped fuse. You need a sparky, imo.

you'd hope so, wouldn't you.
Can't imagine what would have happened that would stop everything working without tripping the fuse unless your circuit breaker has blown completely?
He could try taking the circuit breaker out and replacing it and see if that helps - he'll know which one it is cos if he gets it wrong the lights will go out! (hint - take a torch... )

sorry, that should be what else would have happened...

Well, have booked an electrician now anyway, although not coming until this afternoon.

Bloody hell. I wouldn't mind, but we had the whole house re-wired at enormous cost a couple of years ago .

If you keep the freezer and fridge doors shut, then the food should be okay I think?

Yes, I said that to him but he is in a state about it!

DH, the great lemon, has now cost me £82....

why? what happened? did it turn out to be a tripped fuse after all?

Yes, the dozy so - and - so!

Anyway, I suppose at least I should be grateful there wasn't some major problem...

Take it out of his housekeeping!
Tsk, men these days...

To be fair, the fuse that had tripped doesn't look like any of the others - I dunno why it looks different - and I think even if I'd been at home I'm not sure I would have worked it out.

Anyhoo...