Emergency Electrician in Central London 😫 Traffic, £25 Parking & a Fault That Vanished!

Emergency Electrician Call-Out in Covent Garden, Central London! Working as an emergency electrician in central London can be challenging enough, but add heavy traffic, awkward parking and a fault that seems to disappear, and you have the makings of an interesting couple of visits! In this video, I take you along on two electrical callouts to the same building in Covent Garden. The first visit was on Friday, and the second was the following Tuesday. THE FIRST VISIT – FRIDAY Heavy central London traffic made the journey painfully slow, despite my satnav taking an unexpected route to avoid the worst congestion. When I finally arrived, I had to park in an underground car park that cost an eye-watering £25 for just two hours! Then it was time to carry my tools and electrical tester to the building. The original report was that a loose light fitting had caused a cable to spark. However, when I arrived, there was no obvious damage to any fitting and no sparking cable. I was also given conflicting information about what had actually happened. After speaking to several members of staff, I was told that an RCD had apparently tripped, causing several lights, including the outside lights, to go off. Someone had reset it and isolated the outside lighting, which appeared to resolve the problem. There was one major complication: an event was already taking place in the building, something I hadn't been told about before travelling there. I couldn't risk switching the outside lights back on and potentially causing another loss of lighting during the event. After discussing the situation with the person in charge, we agreed that I would return when the building was no longer hosting an event. THE SECOND VISIT – TUESDAY I was contacted again on Monday by another member of staff and asked to investigate further. As before, I took a deposit covering one hour of labour and the congestion charge before setting off. Thankfully, there were no issues with the payment. The second journey provided more examples of the challenges of driving through central London, including pedestrians stepping into the road without looking and some of the difficulties caused by cyclists. Fortunately, with no event taking place, I was able to park in the building's courtyard this time. But there was a problem: all the lights were working, and nothing had tripped! I inspected the distribution board in the basement and discovered that it contained MCBs rather than RCDs. I then tried to identify which circuit supplied the outside lighting, but I couldn't establish which one it was. I also checked a connection box in an outside cupboard and inspected the light switch for loose connections. Both appeared to be in good condition. With the reported fault no longer present, no obvious defect to investigate and no way to reproduce the original problem, there was little more I could do. We agreed that there was nothing further to test at that point, so I packed up and headed home, filming part of the return journey. THE RESULT Two visits to central London, two journeys through the traffic, expensive parking on the first visit and an electrical fault that I couldn't reproduce. Intermittent electrical faults can be difficult to diagnose, particularly when everything is working normally by the time an electrician arrives. Without being able to reproduce the fault or identify the circuit involved, it isn't possible to confirm what caused the original problem. Have you ever been called out to investigate an electrical fault that mysteriously disappeared before you arrived? Let me know in the comments! 👍 If you enjoy real-world electrical callouts, fault-finding, emergency jobs and the realities of working as an electrician, please give the video alike and consider subscribing to the channel. Thanks for watching! #Electrician #ElectricalFaultFinding #EmergencyElectrician #London #CoventGarden