Electrical fault finding in Johannesburg
Fault finding is the work of locating why a circuit trips, why half the house is dead, or why a fitting sparks. It is not the same job as replacing a whole distribution board, and it is not a Certificate of Compliance. The electrician tests rather than guessing from a one-line WhatsApp. Your brief should give them a head start: which rooms still have lights, whether the stove is on its own breaker, and whether the earth leakage or a single breaker is the one that opens.
Check the street before you request a match. If the neighbour's house is dark and the robots are out, you may be on a municipal outage. An Instant Match electrician cannot log a call with City Power for you by magic, and they cannot energise a dead feeder. Use this page when the problem stays inside your meter.
Burning smell and a breaker that will not stay up
A burning smell at the board, a socket that is warm, or a visible spark is a stop. Switch the main switch off if you can do it without touching damaged equipment. Do not tape a breaker closed and do not pour water onto the board. For a fire or someone who has been shocked, call emergency services. Joburg Electrical is not that line, and the form is not a siren.
After the installation is safe, describe what you switched off and what you smelled. That belongs in the fault brief. If the board cover is scorched, also read the distribution-board page. The person you hire may need to repair the board, not only reset it.
Questions and answers
Should I keep resetting the earth leakage?
Once or twice, to see if a particular appliance is the cause, is reasonable. If it opens immediately every time, stop and leave it off. Repeated resets hide the fault and can damage equipment.
Do you charge a call-out on this form?
This website does not add a call-out. Any fee is between you and the electrician, and they should tell you before they travel. We do not publish a city-wide call-out tariff because we do not set their prices.
Which suburbs have a fault-finding page?
Sandton, Randburg, Roodepoort, Midrand, and Soweto. Each one talks about the faults we actually hear about there, rather than repeating this page with a new place name.