What to do right now
Keep people clear
If someone is still in contact with electricity, don't touch them. Call 000.
Turn off the main switch, if it's safe
Leave it alone if the meter box is wet, sparking or smoking, or you'd have to stand in water to reach it.
Call the right people
Fire, smoke or injury: 000. Fallen lines or the whole street out: your network, listed below. Storm damage to the house: the SES on 132 500.
Leave it off until it's checked
Anything that's been in water, scorched or smoking stays off until a licensed electrician has looked at it.
Fallen power lines: stay well back
Treat every fallen line as live, even if it's quiet and still. Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy, Essential Energy and Western Power all say to stay at least 8 metres away, Evoenergy says 10 metres, and in Victoria, Energy Safe Victoria says more than 8 to 10 metres. Keep children and pets back, and watch for lines hidden in branches and debris. Report it to your network straight away, and call 000 if anyone's in danger.
Fault lines for every electricity network
| Where | Faults and emergencies | |
|---|---|---|
| Ausgrid | Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter | 13 13 88 |
| Endeavour Energy | Sydney's Greater West, the Blue Mountains, the Illawarra and the South Coast | 131 003 |
| Essential Energy | Regional, rural and remote NSW | 13 20 80 |
| CitiPower | Melbourne's CBD and inner suburbs | 13 12 80 |
| Powercor | Melbourne's western suburbs, and western and central Victoria | 13 24 12 |
| Jemena | North-west Melbourne | 131 626 |
| United Energy | Melbourne's south-east and the Mornington Peninsula | 13 20 99 |
| AusNet Services | Melbourne's north and east, and eastern Victoria | 13 17 99 |
| Energex | South East Queensland | 13 19 62 for fallen lines and shocks, 13 62 62 for outages |
| Ergon Energy | Regional Queensland | 13 16 70 for fallen lines and shocks, 13 22 96 for outages |
| Western Power | Perth and the main South West grid | 13 13 51 |
| Horizon Power | Regional WA outside the main grid | 13 23 51 |
| SA Power Networks | South Australia | 13 13 66 |
| TasNetworks | Tasmania | 132 004 |
| Evoenergy | The ACT | 13 10 93 |
| Power and Water | Northern Territory | 1800 245 090 for emergencies, 1800 245 092 for non-urgent faults |
Save your network's number in your phone now, while nothing's wrong.
Shocks and tingles: tell the network too
A tingle from a tap, a shower rail or an appliance can come from the supply to your home as well as your own wiring, so several networks want to hear about it. On Western Power's network, every shock must be reported, however minor. SA Power Networks asks you to call 13 13 66 and stay off that spot until its crew has done a free inspection. Energex, Ergon Energy and TasNetworks take shock reports on their emergency lines too.
If the fault is in the property's wiring, a licensed electrician has to fix it. Electric shocks, tingling taps and burning smells covers what comes next.
After a flood or storm
If water has been through the house, leave the power off. Ausgrid says a flood-damaged property must be checked before the power goes back on, and that air conditioners, pool pumps and other equipment near the ground should stay off until inspected. SA Power Networks won't reconnect an inundated home until an electrician has tested and repaired the wiring and provided a certificate of compliance. Storm, flood and surge damage explains the repair side.
When it's a job for an electrician
If the neighbours and streetlights have power and you don't, the problem is probably on your side. A safety switch that won't reset, power out in part of the house, a scorched power point or a warm switchboard all need a licensed electrician. Power out in one room or half the house helps you narrow it down while you wait.
Getting an urgent job to an electrician through us
We're not an emergency service and there's no 24-hour line here. If we have a licence-checked local electrician who does fault finding and urgent repairs in your area, we pass your job to them and they contact you. We can't promise how quickly that will be.
To flag it, choose Something's not working as the job, then Today, it's urgent when the form asks how soon. When the electrician calls, tell them what you saw, heard or smelled, what tripped, and what's still off. If anything is dangerous, don't wait on a form: call 000 or your network first.
What you can safely do, and what you can't
You can
- Turn off the main switch, if you can reach it without touching anything wet or damaged.
- Reset a tripped safety switch or breaker once, with appliances on that circuit unplugged.
- Unplug an appliance that sparked, smelled hot or tripped the power, and leave it unplugged.
Leave to a licensed electrician
- Anything scorched, melted, smoking or buzzing behind a cover.
- A safety switch or breaker that won't stay on.
- Checking wiring and appliances after water, a storm or a surge.
If it happened to us
We'd sort out who to call before we ever needed to. Save your network's fault number today, know where the main switch is, and make sure everyone in the house can find it in the dark. When something does go wrong, call 000 or the network first if it's their job, make the house safe, and only then look for an electrician.
Want a specialist to sort it?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match the licence-checked local electrician who does this kind of work, and they call you. No ring-around, and your number goes to them alone.