Start here
Sort it in ten seconds
Three categories. Find yours and act accordingly.
- Visible smoke or flame
- An outlet or panel that's hot with a strong burning smell
- Audible arcing you can hear from across the room
- A downed power line
- Anyone who has been shocked and isn't fully alert
- Burning smell with no fire
- Warm or discoloured outlets and switches
- Sparking when something is plugged in
- A shock from an appliance or fixture
- Water reaching outlets or the panel
- Lights brightening in some rooms while dimming in others
- One dead circuit
- A breaker that trips under obvious overload and resets normally
- A buzzing switch
- A partial outage where the neighbours are also dark
Thirty seconds first
Before you call anyone: is it the utility?
If your problem is no power at all, this is worth checking before anything else.
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Do your neighbours have power?
A dark street is a utility outage, and no electrician can restore it.
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Check your utility's outage map
Most publish one showing reported outages and estimated restoration times.
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Look at your own panel, including the main breaker
If the street has power and you don't, the answer is inward.
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Partial power is rarely an outage
Half the property working is usually a fault on your side — and one of the possible causes is genuinely urgent. See below.
If it turns out to be the utility, we'll tell you before dispatching. Driving out to confirm what an outage map already says helps nobody, and we won't charge you for it.
The one that gets ignored
Lights that brighten and dim
Among the most consequential electrical faults, and the one people are least likely to treat as urgent — because the lights are still on.
- The symptom
- Lights in some rooms getting brighter while lights elsewhere get dimmer, often changing as appliances switch on and off. Sometimes accompanied by electronics failing unexpectedly, or appliances behaving strangely.
- The likely cause
- A lost or open neutral — a failed neutral connection at the panel or in the service. Without a solid neutral, voltage stops dividing evenly between circuits, and some circuits receive more than they should.
- Why it matters
- Over-voltage destroys electronics and appliances, and the failing connection producing it is generating heat. It's one of the few faults actively damaging your property while everything still appears to function.
- What to do
- Switch off sensitive equipment and call.
Why subtle signs are urgent
What's actually happening inside the wall
Electricity generates heat wherever it meets resistance. A properly made connection has almost none.
Through vibration, thermal cycling, or being pushed into a spring clip rather than tightened under a screw. Now it has resistance.
Every time the circuit carries load, heat builds where the resistance is.
And degraded insulation allows current to jump small gaps — which is arcing.
Generating far more heat in a very small area, which produces more arcing. The cycle only runs one direction.
It's a process, not an event. Which is why a burning smell with nothing visibly wrong is genuinely urgent — you're smelling a stage in that cycle.
And intermittent is worse than constant. A circuit that works most of the time and occasionally flickers, buzzes, or drops out is often a connection making and breaking contact. That's arcing — and "it's working again" is not the reassurance it feels like.
What we handle
Emergencies we respond to
Burning smells and overheating
Hot plastic odours, warm faceplates, discoloured outlets, and heat at the panel — located and corrected.
Sparking, arcing, and buzzing
Visible sparks, audible crackling from switches or the panel, and the intermittent faults that produce them.
Total and partial power loss
Main breaker failures, service faults, and the panel-side problems behind losing half a property.
Open neutral and voltage faults
Diagnosed and corrected before more equipment is damaged.
Shocks and energised surfaces
Faulty grounding, energised appliance casings, and ground faults that need finding rather than resetting.
Breakers that won't hold
Circuits faulting, breakers that have failed mechanically, and panels that can't be safely reset.
Water and electrical systems
Leaks or flooding reaching outlets, fixtures, junction boxes, or the panel — assessed and made safe.
Storm and service damage
Damaged masts, weatherheads, and service entrance equipment, coordinated with the utility where the boundary requires it.
Emergency isolation and restoration
Getting essential circuits safely back on while a larger repair is scheduled.
Smoke alarm faults
Hardwired alarms failing, chirping continuously, or sounding without cause.
While you wait
What to do before we arrive
If you've smelled burning or seen sparking
- Switch off that circuit at the panel if you can identify it and reach the panel safely. If you can't identify it and the smell is strong, switch off the main — provided you're not standing in water and nothing around the panel is wet.
- Unplug what was running on the affected circuit, especially anything that felt warm or smelled odd.
- Leave the breaker off. If it trips again immediately, that's the answer, not a challenge.
- Don't investigate. No opening panels, no removing faceplates, no touching anything hot or sparking.
- Note what changed — a new appliance, recent work, a storm, a leak, or the moment it started. It's frequently the fastest route to the fault.
- Clear access to the panel before we arrive.
If water is involved
- Don't touch the panel or any electrical equipment if there's water on the floor.
- Call your utility or 911 rather than reaching for it.
If someone has been shocked
- Don't touch them while they may still be in contact with the source.
- Cut power at the breaker or unplug the source if it's safe to do so.
- Call 911.
Avoid these
What not to do
Seven things that make it worse
- Water on an electrical fire. It conducts. Get out and call 911.
- Repeatedly resetting a breaker that won't hold. It's detecting a fault. Forcing it removes the protection and leaves the problem.
- Backfeeding a generator into a wall outlet. During an outage this pushes power onto utility lines and can kill the crews restoring your supply. It's illegal in most jurisdictions. Generators connect to appliances directly, or through a properly installed transfer switch or interlock.
- Opening the panel cover. The supply terminals stay live even with the main switched off.
- Covering a scorched outlet. Tape and a new faceplate hide evidence that heat has already been present.
- Running extension cords to work around a dead circuit. That's how the next fault becomes the serious one.
- Touching anything electrical from a wet floor — including the panel.
Why Lafayette calls us
What you get when you call Frontier Electric
Hazard first, diagnosis second
The first action on arrival is making the situation safe. Everything else happens after nothing is getting worse.
We find the cause, not the casualty
A scorched outlet is where the damage showed up. The cause is a loose termination, an overloaded circuit, an undersized conductor, or a failing device — sometimes at that outlet, often elsewhere on the run. Replacing the burnt device without finding out which is how the same fault reappears in another room.
We'll tell you it's not an emergency
If what you're describing can wait for regular hours at standard rates, that's what you'll hear on the phone.
Price before repair
Diagnosis, then the fault, then the number.
Licensed, insured, background-checked
With permits pulled where scope requires them.
How it works
Our response process
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Triage on the call
What's happening, what you've switched off, and whether it's a utility issue. We give you immediate safety steps and a realistic arrival window.
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Isolate
The hazard is made safe on arrival, before anything is diagnosed.
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Locate the fault
Systematic testing. The damage you can see is often not where the problem started.
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Quote
Scope and price before repair. If the full fix needs daylight, a part, or a utility attendance, you get the cost to make it safe tonight and the cost to finish it properly.
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Repair and verify
Repair completed and tested, terminations made properly, protection confirmed.
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Explain
What caused it, whether anything related is likely to follow, and what documentation you'll want for an insurer or for the file.
Root causes
Why it happened
Most emergency calls trace back to a short list, and knowing which one applies tells you whether it's likely to recur.
- Loose terminations. The most common cause by a distance — particularly conductors pushed into the back of a device rather than secured under screw terminals. If that method was used throughout a property, one failure suggests others.
- Overloaded circuits. Load added over years as rooms change use, until a circuit designed for a bedroom is running an office.
- Aged devices. Outlets and switches wear out. Contacts fatigue, grip weakens, and a loose plug connection heats.
- Water ingress. Leaks reaching boxes and fixtures corrode connections and create fault paths.
- Aluminum branch connections. Expansion and contraction cycles loosen terminations, which heat.
- Physical damage. Fasteners driven through cable during other work, and rodent damage in attics and crawlspaces.
- Previous unpermitted work. Undersized conductors, unsecured splices, missing boxes, and grounds left unconnected — invisible until something fails.
We'll tell you which one you've got. That determines whether tonight's repair is the end of it, or the first sign of something broader.
Save the premium
What isn't an emergency
Being straight about this saves you the after-hours rate.
- A single dead outlet on an otherwise healthy circuit
- A light fixture that's stopped working
- A breaker that tripped once under obvious overload and reset normally
- A switch that's become unreliable
- One bulb flickering in one fixture
The test: is anything hot, burning, sparking, shocking, or wet? Has anyone been shocked? Is essential equipment down? If none of those, and nothing is getting worse, book regular hours. Call and describe it either way — we'll tell you honestly which it is.
Ten minutes now
Being ready before it happens
- Label your panel. Most are labelled wrongly or not at all. Working out which breaker kills which room in the dark, during an emergency, wastes exactly the minutes that matter.
- Confirm you can find and operate the main. Practise it once.
- Keep the panel clear. Nothing stacked in front of it.
- Test GFCI outlets periodically with their test and reset buttons. They're protective devices and they do fail.
- Know the age and brand of your panel. Certain older panel types have documented histories of breakers failing to trip. Worth assessing on a scheduled visit rather than discovering during an incident.
- Keep a torch near the panel — not upstairs in a drawer.
- Make sure more than one person in the household knows all of the above.
Commercial
Commercial emergency electrical
We respond to emergencies at restaurants, retail, offices, warehouses, and multi-unit residential buildings across Lafayette.
For a business, electrical failure usually means closing — lost trade, spoiled refrigerated stock, dead point-of-sale, and compliance exposure in food premises. Commercial systems add three-phase supply, distribution across multiple panels, and emergency lighting obligations, all of which change diagnosis and access.
In multi-unit residential, faults in shared systems affect every tenant at once, and coordinating with building management is part of the response.
Tell us the property type when you call. It changes dispatch priority and what we bring.
Service area
Areas we serve near Lafayette
Frontier Electric proudly serves Lafayette, CA and the surrounding neighborhoods, responding to residential and commercial electrical emergencies throughout the area. Unsure whether you're in range? Call and ask.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an emergency?
Anything hot, burning, sparking, shocking, or wet. Total power loss that isn't a utility outage. Lights brightening and dimming across the property. If none of that applies, it can usually wait for regular hours.
My power is out — should I call you?
Check whether the neighbours are dark and look at your utility's outage map first. A street-wide outage is the utility's to restore. If it's only you, call us.
Why are my lights brightening and dimming?
Often a lost or open neutral, which allows over-voltage on some circuits. It damages appliances and generates heat at the failing connection while everything still appears to work. Treat it as urgent.
I can smell burning but everything works.
That's exactly the situation to treat seriously. Switch off the affected circuit if you can safely identify it, or the main if you can't and the smell is strong, then call. Visible smoke means leave and call 911.
My breaker won't stay on. Can I keep resetting it?
No. It's detecting a fault. Repeatedly forcing it removes the protection without removing the problem.
Can I put water on an electrical fire?
No. Get everyone out and call 911.
There's a power line down on my property.
Stay well clear, keep everyone and every pet away, assume it's live, and call 911 and your electric utility. Never approach or attempt to move it.
Can I run a generator into a wall socket during an outage?
No. Backfeeding can send power onto utility lines and kill line crews, and it's illegal in most places. Use a transfer switch or interlock, or connect appliances directly.
Water got into my panel. What do I do?
Don't touch it, particularly if there's water on the floor. Call your utility or 911, then us. Water-damaged electrical equipment usually needs replacing rather than drying out.
How fast can you get here?
We dispatch immediately and give you a realistic window on the call. Timing depends on your location, traffic, and current volume. We'd rather be accurate than optimistic.
What does an after-hours call cost?
Emergency and after-hours work carries different rates than scheduled appointments. You'll be told what applies before any work starts.
Will insurance cover electrical damage?
It depends on cause and policy. Photograph everything, keep the repair documentation and permit paperwork, and contact your insurer promptly.
Can you fix it in one visit?
Most emergencies, yes. Where a part must be ordered or the utility needs to attend, we make it safe and tell you exactly what's usable in the meantime.
The quiet ones are the urgent ones
Sparks and smoke get called in immediately. A faint burning smell, a warm faceplate, or lights that flicker when the dryer starts get lived with — and those are the faults already partway through the heat-and-arc cycle.
Frontier Electric answers around the clock in Lafayette, CA, isolates the hazard before diagnosing, and quotes before repairing.