Water in consumer unit

1) If you have had water in your consumer unit, the safest thing you can do is immediately call an electrician for advice. 

Attempting to turn off electrical switches that are wet can lead to electric shock and injury. If ever there was a time to call an emergency electrician then a situation where there is WATER IN THE CONSUMER UNIT is one of those times.

2) Will an electrician come out of hours? 24 hours? Emergency?

Yes to all of that.  There are electricians that work out of hours and will visit your home to repair or make safe electrical issues that need immediate attention. We are one of those. We attend electrical emergencies for our private customers, insurers and national companies that require ad hoc assistance from us. 
Our emergency electrical service is 24 hours a day and we aim to be with you as quickly as possible. 

3) The fuse board is very wet what shall I do?

This situation is best judged by a qualified electrician. Water and electricity make for a very dangerous situation in untrained hands and there are some circumstances that calling an emergency electrician is absolutely the right thing to do. An electrician will make the judgement call to decide what is safe to turn off, turn on or leave as is. An electrician will be able to carry out electrical testing on circuits to see if there is damage, water ingress or issues that would prevent the circuit from being used safely. 

If your fuse board is very wet then it is highly advisable that you DO NOT touch it! 

4) Will I need a new fuse board or consumer unit? 

If your fuse board / consumer unit has suffered significant water ingress then it is likely it will need to be replaced. Water is conductive, corrosive, destructive and can absolutely ruin electrical wiring, components and consumer units. Water can leave behind traces of minerals and salts after the water has evaporated, these trace elements can be conductive which can ruin the electrical insulating properties of switches, cabling and accessories. This can mean absolute ruin for electrical systems and components. In some cases, certain parts, components or cabling can be reinstated and safely used. 

5) What parts can be re-used?

There are occasions where the ‘guts’ of the consumer unit can be swapped and the enclosure can be re used. This can save some costs but it is on a case by case basis and down to the engineering judgement of the electrician attending the problem to assess the damage. 

Installing replacement parts into a consumer unit does depend on one huge factor. Age. A lot of consumer units are left for many decades without being replaced and, whilst they can offer a long service life without maintenance or major issues, the problem is that many manufacturers of consumer units and equipment either swap the designs or go out of business. 

This means that replacement parts can be an absolute nightmare to source meaning that even if only minor damage has occurred to an older consumer unit, the chances are that the whole unit may need to be swapped out.

6) How long will the power be off for?

This depends on whether we decide if the installation is safe to re – energise or not. If the installation has been tested and inspected properly and we decide that we can energise some or all of the circuits then it is likely that the power will only need to be for a couple of hours whilst this is sorted out. 

If the installation has suffered more serious damage that requires consumer unit replacement then it is likely that the power will be off for several hours whilst the consumer unit is replaced, testing is carried out and any hidden electrical problems are found and made safe.

If you are at all worried about WATER IN THE CONSUMER UNIT then please get in touch with us as soon as possible so we can arrange to come and make safe for you.