Tell us what happened

What happens after you send the form

1. Tell us how urgent it is. Say if there are sparks, burning smells or a flat with no power, so the electrician who takes the job knows what they are walking into.

2. We pass it to an electrician. Ask them what the call-out and diagnosis will cost before anyone sets off. The price guide shows published market ranges to compare against.

3. Check the licence before work starts. The electrician who takes the job must hold a current EMA licence of the right class, whether the premises are HDB, condo, landed or commercial.

Not sure it's an emergency?

A tripping breaker you can reset usually isn't; repeated trips, a warm DB box or any burning smell is. Our guide to what to do when the power trips walks through the safe checks, or just describe it in the form and let us judge.

Two things that are always urgent, whatever else is going on: any smell of burning from a socket, switch or the distribution board, and any socket or faceplate that is warm or discoloured to the touch. Isolate that circuit, stop using it, and do not keep resetting the breaker. Two things that are almost never urgent: a single circuit that tripped once and reset cleanly with nothing warm and nothing smelling, and a light that has simply stopped working. Those can wait for a normal-hours visit, which also avoids the after-hours premium.

What to put in the message

The more specific you are, the easier it is for the electrician who takes the job to give you a realistic arrival time and price before anyone travels. Four things do most of the work:

• What kind of property. HDB flat, condo, landed or commercial premises, and roughly how old. The rules and the likely cause differ, and for non-domestic premises the licensing regime is different again.
• What is affected. One socket, one room, the whole flat, or the whole block. If the whole block is dark it is a supply issue rather than a fault in your flat, our power failure guide explains how to tell in about a minute, and it saves you a call-out.
• What you have already tried. Especially whether the breaker resets, and whether it holds or trips again straight away. That single detail narrows the diagnosis more than anything else you can tell us.
• Your area. The district helps match the job to an electrician who covers it.

Photos help, particularly of the distribution board with the cover visible, and of any socket or switch that looks damaged. Do not open anything to take one.

What it is likely to cost

No figure here is a quote, but you should not have to go in blind either. Published Singapore rates put an ordinary-hours call-out or minimum charge at roughly S$40–80, and most small jobs (a socket, a light point, a ceiling fan) at between S$60 and S$220. Distribution board work starts around S$320. Every one of those figures is attributed and dated on the price guide, and our guide to how call-out and minimum charges work explains what usually waives the call-out.

Checking the electrician before you let anyone in

You should verify any electrician before work starts, including one who takes a job passed on from this site. Ask for the Licensed Electrical Worker’s name and licence number, then search it on EMA’s free public ELISE register, our licence check walkthrough takes about a minute. If a name or number does not come back, do not let the work go ahead.

What happens to what you send

Your enquiry is used to answer you and, if the job goes ahead, to brief the licensed electrician attending. It is not sold and it does not go on a marketing list. Please do not send NRIC or payment details through the form, they are never needed to book a job. The privacy policy sets out who processes it, how long it is kept, and how to have it deleted.