Emergency electrician in Seville, Spain, 24 hours a day

When you need an emergency electrician in Seville

Not every electrical fault can wait until Monday. Call an emergency electrician if any of these happen to you:

• You have no electricity in the whole home or part of it, and your neighbours do.
• The RCD trips and will not stay up, or trips every so often. In Spain it is called the diferencial, and most expats know it as the trip switch.
• There is a burning smell, or smoke coming from a socket, a junction box or the fuse board itself.
• A socket sparks, looks black or is very hot to the touch.
• You get a shock from the shower tap, the washing machine or the fridge.
• The circuit breaker for the kitchen or the air conditioning trips and you cannot use the essentials.
• Your business is in the dark or a cold room has stopped.

If the fault is small and there is no risk (a light that does not work in a corridor, a dead socket in a bedroom), it can wait for a normal visit, which costs less. We tell you honestly when you call.

How the Spanish system works when the lights go out

Many foreign residents lose time phoning the wrong company. In Spain the electricity network is split in two:

• The distributor (distribuidora) owns the cables and the meter and repairs power cuts in the street. In Seville and the rest of Andalusia it is e-distribución. You cannot choose it.
• Your supplier (comercializadora) sends the bill. It may be Endesa, Iberdrola, Naturgy, Octopus or another company. It does not repair anything.

If the whole street is dark, call e-distribución. If only your home is affected, the fault is on your side of the meter and you need an electrician. There is a third case that confuses almost everyone in their first summer: the smart meter cuts the power because you have used more than your contracted power (potencia contratada). Nothing trips in your fuse board, and the power often comes back on its own after a few seconds. That is the ICP, the power limiter built into the meter, and the long-term fix is in our page on how to increase your contracted power.

Faults our emergency electrician repairs

Each symptom has its own causes, but in an emergency what matters is that someone with the right instruments finds the fault. The most common call-outs in Seville are:

• RCD tripping because of an earth leakage: an appliance, damp in a box or a damaged cable. We explain it fully in RCD keeps tripping.
• Power cut in the home, total or partial, caused by a fault in the fuse board, in the individual supply cable from the meter or in a joint.
• Short circuit with a spark and a tripped breaker, almost always in a socket, a light fitting or a trapped cable.
• Burning smell or melted cables, the most serious emergency because it comes right before a fire.
• The ICP cuts the supply when several appliances are on at once, a sign that you are above your contracted power.
• Fuse board faults: burnt terminals, breakers that will not reset or buzzing.

You can see every type of fault we attend on the emergency electrician page.

How our emergency electricians work

1. Phone call or message. You tell us what happened and, if there is a risk, we tell you what to switch off in the fuse board while we are on the way. We give you an estimated arrival time and the call-out price.
2. Diagnosis in your home. We measure voltage, insulation and earthing, and isolate circuits until we find the faulty one. We do not replace parts blindly.
3. Price before repair. We explain the cause, what needs doing and what it costs. If you are not convinced, it is not done.
4. Repair and testing. We replace the faulty part, measure again and test the RCD with its tester so that it is within the values set by the Spanish wiring regulations.
5. Invoice and recommendations. You get a detailed invoice and, if we have seen something worth correcting later, we put it in writing so you can think about it without pressure.

Guide prices for an emergency call-out in Seville

These are guide prices. Spanish trade prices are usually quoted without VAT, so we show both figures. The price of your repair is fixed before we start, and the full price list is on our prices page.

What you can do before we arrive

1. Check whether it is only your home. Look at the landing, the street and the windows opposite. If everything is dark, the cut is on the distributor’s network.
2. Open the fuse board (breaker panel) and see what has tripped. If it is the RCD, switch off all the circuit breakers, push the RCD up and then switch the breakers back on one at a time. The one that trips it is the circuit with the problem: leave it off and use the rest of the home.
3. If a circuit breaker has tripped, unplug the appliances in that area before resetting it. If it trips again with nothing plugged in, do not insist.
4. If nothing has tripped and you have no power, it may be the ICP in the meter or a fault on the cable that feeds your fuse board. Do not open the meter room or handle fuses: that is a job for an electrician.
5. Have access ready to the fuse board and, in a flat, the key to the meter room if the porter or the community president keeps it.

If there is smoke, a burning smell or a hot socket, do not run any tests: switch off the main switch and wait outside the room if the smell is strong.

Typical emergencies by area and type of home

Each type of building fails in its own way, and knowing this shortens the diagnosis in the middle of the night:

• Nervión, Los Remedios, El Porvenir and La Macarena. Blocks from the 1960s and 1970s with installations designed for 3 kW, no earthing and few circuits. In summer, with air conditioning running in several bedrooms at once, joints overheat and breakers trip. Here many emergencies end in a fuse board replacement or in rewiring the apartment. See also our page on Nervión.
• Triana and the old town. Traditional courtyard houses and refurbished buildings with old supply cables, damp patios and many bars and restaurants. Leaks caused by damp in courtyards and faults in commercial kitchens are the most frequent, and in businesses the hurry is greatest. More on Triana.
• Sevilla Este and Entrenúcleos. Homes built from 2000 onwards with modern fuse boards. Emergencies usually come from a newly installed appliance, a light fitting badly connected during the move or a loose connection, and they are solved faster. More on Sevilla Este.
• Villas and townhouses in the Aljarafe and the metropolitan belt. Outdoor damp is the main enemy: garden lights, pool pumps, irrigation and barbecue sockets without suitable protection. The first autumn rains set the phones ringing.

Why there are more emergencies in summer and with the first rains

On very hot days old installations work at their limit: undersized cables feeding air conditioners, induction hobs and water heaters at the same time. The heat softens old insulation and stresses loose connections until they fail. With the first autumn rains comes the second wave: water in terrace sockets, junction boxes and awning and blind motors.

If your home has a fault every summer, the emergency is only the symptom. It is worth having an inspection with measurements to find out whether it is enough to split the circuits or whether the installation needs more.

Emergencies in communities and businesses

In a block of flats, a dark staircase or garage is a safety problem for everyone. We attend faults in communal lighting, garages, entrance halls and the electrical side of lifts and water pressure pumps, and we coordinate with the distributor when the fault is in the building’s incoming supply. For buildings that want a regular contract, see building maintenance.

In bars, restaurants, shops and offices, a fault means closing. We give priority to restoring power to the essentials (cold rooms, till, lighting and emergency lighting) and, if the final repair needs more time, we plan it outside your opening hours. Businesses have their own page: shops and offices.

Regulations we apply in every repair

An emergency repair must also comply with the Spanish Low Voltage Electrotechnical Regulation (REBT, Royal Decree 842/2002). In practice this means:

• Fuse board protection in line with ITC-BT-17: main switch, RCDs and circuit breakers suited to each circuit.
• 30 mA RCDs on the circuits of the home, as required by ITC-BT-25, checked with a trip test.
• Overcurrent protection in line with ITC-BT-22 when we replace breakers or cables.
• A registered installer company with the Junta de Andalucía, as established by Royal Decree 560/2010, so that the repair is done by someone who can answer for it and, if necessary, issue the boletín.