Emergency Electrician Tower Hamlets — 24/7 same-day callout
F & A Electrical covers the whole London Borough of Tower Hamlets for 24-hour electrical emergencies: E1, E1W, E2, E3 and E14. Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Bow, Mile End, Stepney, Shadwell, Limehouse, Wapping, Poplar, Bromley-by-Bow, Globe Town, Spitalfields, the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf.
NICEIC approved, Part P registered, fully insured. From our base in north London we are typically into E1, E2 and E3 inside 45 minutes, with E14 shortly after depending on the Blackwall Tunnel approach.
Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453 — answered 24 hours.
What counts as an electrical emergency
If any of the following apply, stop using the circuit and call rather than waiting for a routine appointment:
- Burning smell, scorch marks or smoke from a socket, switch, light fitting or the consumer unit. A hot plastic smell with no obvious source is the one most often ignored and the one most likely to be a loose connection heating up inside a back box.
- Sparking, buzzing or crackling from the fuse board, a socket or a switch.
- Total loss of power when neighbouring flats still have supply — that points at your installation or your cut-out fuse rather than a network fault.
- A breaker or RCD that will not reset, or that trips again within seconds. Repeatedly forcing it back on is how a fault becomes a fire.
- Water ingress onto electrics — a leak from the flat above running into a light fitting or a consumer unit.
- Exposed or damaged cable, a socket hanging off the wall, or a shock felt from an appliance or tap.
If the whole street or block is out, that is a distribution fault and belongs to UK Power Networks on 105, not to us. We will tell you that on the phone rather than charge you to attend and say the same thing in person.
What we do when we arrive
The first job is always to make the installation safe, which often means isolating one faulty circuit and leaving the rest of the flat live rather than blacking out the property. From there we fault-find properly — insulation resistance and continuity testing to locate the fault rather than guessing — and give you the repair cost before we carry it out.
Most emergency calls resolve in a single visit. Where a part is needed that we do not carry on the van, we make the installation safe, leave you with as much of the property working as is safe to run, and come back with the part rather than leaving the job open.
What it costs
There is no premium emergency call-out fee. Emergency attendance is charged at the same minimum as any other visit: £108 (£90 + VAT), covering attendance, diagnosis and the first hour on site. All our prices are labour only; materials are itemised separately.
- Emergency attendance and diagnosis — from £108 (£90 + VAT)
- EICR — from £140, if the callout turns into a full inspection
- PAT testing — £5 per appliance, subject to the £108 minimum
- Repair work — quoted before we start, never after
We will not quote a repair price over the phone for a fault nobody has seen, because the honest diagnosis is the thing you are actually paying for. What we will do is tell you the attendance cost before we set off, so nothing on the invoice is a surprise.
Tower Hamlets property types and the faults that go with them
The borough has one of the most mixed housing stocks in London, and the emergency workload follows it:
- Warehouse conversions in Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse — original 1980s and 1990s conversion wiring now past its design life, with lighting circuits carrying far more downlights than they were ever designed for. Overheating at junction boxes above ceilings is a recurring call.
- Estate flats in Poplar, Bromley-by-Bow and Mile End — where the landlord-supply and tenant-supply boundary is unclear. If the fault is on the council’s side of the meter we will document it and hand it back rather than charge you for work that is not yours.
- Victorian terraces in Bow, Bethnal Green and Stepney — extensions and loft conversions added on spurs over the years, often with no earth continuity to the newer rooms. Intermittent faults here are usually in a connection nobody has looked at since the work was done.
- New-build towers around Canary Wharf and South Quay — generally sound installations, but failed RCBOs and nuisance tripping from appliance faults are common, and access to communal risers has to go through the building manager.
- Licensed HMOs across E1 and E2 — where an emergency often exposes a wider compliance problem, particularly with interlinked smoke and heat alarms.
After the emergency
An emergency callout is a symptom. If the board is a rewireable or plug-in-fuse type with no RCD protection, the fault we have just fixed probably has company. A consumer unit replacement or a full EICR in Tower Hamlets from £140 will find the rest of it in one visit rather than across three more emergencies.
Landlords should note that since the Renters’ Rights Act took full effect on 1 May 2026, the maximum penalty for failing to hold a valid electrical safety certificate is £40,000 per offence, up from the old £30,000 cap, and any C1 or C2 code must be remedied within 28 days with written confirmation to the tenant and the council. Tower Hamlets is an active enforcement borough, and licensing officers do ask.
Frequently asked questions
Do you really answer at night? Yes — both numbers are answered 24 hours. If we are already on a job you will get a call back with a realistic time rather than an open-ended promise.
How fast can you reach Canary Wharf? Usually within the hour, traffic depending. We will give you a genuine estimate on the phone rather than an optimistic one.
Can you make it safe if I cannot afford the full repair tonight? Yes. Making the installation safe and isolating the faulty circuit is always the first step and is covered by the attendance charge.
Are you NICEIC approved? Yes — NICEIC approved contractor and Part P registered, with every certificate registered accordingly.
Tower Hamlets emergency line: 07407 627542 / 07500 721453.
See also: general electrician services in Tower Hamlets · all London boroughs we cover · what an EICR costs in London in 2026