24-Hour Electrician in Porto and Greater Porto

What Is an Emergency and What Can Wait Until Tomorrow

We say this on the phone and we'll say it here too, because it saves callers money. It's an emergency if there's a burning smell from the consumer unit or a socket, sparks, a fuse box or cable that's hot to the touch, water in contact with the electrics, or a total loss of power in a home with a baby, an elderly person or medical equipment that depends on electricity.

It's also an emergency, because of the consequences rather than the danger, when a restaurant or butcher's loses its cold room, a holiday let has guests with no power, or an office grinds to a halt on a working day. The risk is low, but the loss per hour is high.

It's not an emergency when a single socket stops working, a light fitting fails, a switch breaks, or a breaker keeps tripping on the same circuit you've already identified. Those are jobs for normal hours and cost a lot less. If you ring us at 3 am with one of these, that's exactly what we'll tell you.

What to Do Before We Arrive

If there's a burning smell or heat at the consumer unit, switch off the main breaker and leave it off. Resetting a breaker while the fault is still present is precisely the chain of events that turns a fault into a fire.

If the power goes at night and there's equipment that can't be left off, such as a full freezer, an oxygen concentrator or an aquarium, mention it as soon as you call. It changes how we prioritise the job, and often the answer is to safely restore just that circuit first while we track down the fault in the rest of the property.

If water is involved, turn off the main switch before touching anything, even if it looks dry. And if the whole building or the street has lost power, check with a neighbour before calling anyone: if it's the grid, the network operator is the one who fixes it, and you'd be paying for a call-out for nothing.

How We Charge for an Emergency, With No Surprises

A job done out of hours costs more than the same job at ten on a Tuesday morning, and that's normal in any trade. What isn't normal is finding out how much only at the end.

We give you the call-out charge and the rate for the first hour before we leave, over the phone. If it turns out on site that the job is bigger than it looked, we stop, explain and give you a price before carrying on. Nobody is left with work under way without knowing what it will cost.

And very often the right answer at one in the morning is a safe temporary repair that gets the power back on, with the permanent repair done the next day during normal hours. It costs less, and it's what we do whenever we can.

For landlords and holiday-let owners who live abroad, this also means you get a clear account of what happened overnight and what the follow-up repair involves, so you can approve it before anything more is done.

Shops and Restaurants: What Tends to Fail at Night

Night-time calls from businesses in Greater Porto follow a pattern. The most common is a cold room that stops, and the cause is rarely the cold room itself: it's the circuit feeding it, a stuck contactor, or an RCD that has tripped because of another appliance on the same circuit, which is exactly what shouldn't be happening.

The second is a partial failure in a commercial kitchen with three-phase equipment: one phase is lost and some of the equipment keeps running, which confuses the diagnosis and can damage motors if it isn't switched off quickly.

In these cases the priority is to get whatever can't wait working again, above all the refrigeration, with a safe solution, and leave the permanent repair for normal hours. It's cheaper and lets us do the job properly, and it's what we suggest whenever it's possible.

Does the 24-hour service cover the whole of Greater Porto?

Yes: Matosinhos, Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Maia, Gondomar, Valongo and the surrounding areas. Response time depends on distance and the time of day, and we always tell you what to expect on the phone.

Are the rates different at night?

Yes, as with any emergency service: outside normal hours, at weekends and on public holidays the call-out charge is higher. You're told the figure before we set off, never when we turn up.

Is it worth calling in the middle of the night or should I wait until morning?

If there's a burning smell, sparks, overheating or water in contact with the electrics, call now. If it's a single circuit with no risk, we'll tell you on the phone that it can wait, and you'll save the emergency rate.

Do you attend apartment buildings and businesses out of hours?

Yes. Faults in communal areas, lifts with no power, pumping systems and cold rooms in commercial premises are all treated as priorities.

Do you actually come out in the small hours, or is it just someone answering the phone?

We genuinely come out, for the situations on our emergency list. For anything that can wait, we'll tell you honestly that it's better to book it for the next day, and explain why, rather than take advantage of the hour.

The whole building has no power. Do I call you or EDP?

If it's the whole building or the street, the fault is on the distribution network and the grid operator (E-Redes, formerly part of EDP) fixes it, so paying an electrician to come out would achieve nothing. If it's only your flat and the neighbours have power, the problem is in your installation and that's our job.

Do you handle emergencies in restaurants and holiday lets?

We do, and they make up a large share of our night-time calls. In those cases the priority is to get the essentials running again, such as the cold room or power to the guest rooms, and leave the permanent repair for normal hours, which is cheaper and lets us do a better job.

Is it more expensive at night? By how much?

It is, as in any trade. What shouldn't happen is only finding out the amount at the end: we give you the call-out charge and the first-hour rate on the phone before we leave, and if the job grows we stop and give you a price before continuing.

Do you fix everything on the spot, or is it sometimes temporary?

Most faults are fixed there and then. When the permanent repair needs specific parts or work that can't be done properly in the middle of the night, we leave a safe temporary solution with the power back on and do the permanent job in normal hours, which is cheaper and done better.

What's the difference between an on-call electrician and a 24-hour electrician?

In practice it's the same service: someone available outside normal hours for faults that can't wait. With any on-call service, it's worth confirming the call-out charge before they set off and whether a repair done in the small hours is permanent or temporary.