Is your home safe from electrical faults?

East Kent Electrical offers expert advice and provides a highly skilled team to help you with all your electrical services. We offer a range of work- from electric heating to LED Lighting- to Broadstairs and its surrounding areas.

Electricity can be very dangerous. In fact it’s now the major cause of accidental fires in UK homes. According to Government statistics, electricity causes more than 20,000 fires a year. So it’s very important to try keep your home safe from electrical faults. For advice on how to do this please keep reading!

Servicing

Every year you should have a gas safety inspection. This will give you peace of mind that your gas appliances are safe and working as they should. It will allow any potential or actual gas faults to be detected, and fixed before they become very serious. So if you haven’t had one yet this year, consider arranging one soon!

Electrical dangers around the home

There are some things we do which increases our likelihood of electrical faults. For example, you should avoid creating hazards by overloading sockets, and you should never ignore warning signs, like smells of burning, fuses blowing, or arcing sounds. When equipment is damaged or misused, the chance of electrical accidents are significantly increased. Failure to fix the problem could lead to disastrous consequences.

Some obvious dangers

You should try avoid making the following errors:

• Doing maintenance on plugged in appliances- always unplug them!
• Leaving flexible cables trailing under rugs or carpets
• Drilling or fixing nails into walls without knowing what’s behind them- they could be concealing electrical cables, and gas and water pipes. You do not want to be drilling into these!
• Leaving electric appliances near water, or covering up their ventilation slots. These are big fire risks.
• Overloading sockets and adaptors. An average room would be expected to have around four sockets. This should be enough for the majority of purposes. However, as the use of appliances has increased, so has the need for sockets. Often extension leads and adaptors offer an easy and quick fix. Yet, these are frequently misused. So they can be dangerous. Overloading and plugging adaptors into other adaptors is risky and can cause fires!

Safety of plugs, sockets and flexible cables

You should regularly check the condition and safety of your plugs, sockets and flexible cables. If these are damaged they can cause electric shocks, burns and fires. Thus checking them can prevent harm to your home and family.

You should check the plug and socket for burn marks, sound of ‘arcing’ (buzzing or crackling), fuses constantly blowing, circuit-breakers tripping, or them feeling hot.

Also always remove plugs from their sockets carefully. If you pull out a plug by the cable, you will be putting a strain on it. This could damage the contact point between the plug and the socket. This could cause the plug to overheat, for wires to become loose and could cause electric shocks.

To also ensure your safety always replace damaged cables immediately. Coming into contact with exposed live wires could give you an electric shock, or possibly even kill you!

Looking for LED lighting in Broadstairs?

We have provided this information to try help keep your house safe from electrical faults. If you would like more information or advice, please not hesitate to contact us.

And, if you are interested in any of our services, like LED lighting, and live in Broadstairs or its surrounding areas, please also get in touch. We promise to offer a professional, reliable and affordable service throughout all the domestic and commercial sectors.