I rented a studio in a building, everything was fine until tonight. I was turning on the kitchen light when it suddenly went on for a second and then most electricity in my studio went out. Now only a small lamp in the kitchen is working.
I tried to look at the electricity center in my building, it has white rounds on it (I'm not sure how it works since in my home country we have panels instead and we could just take the panels up again if it's down). Should I turn the white rounds to take it off and then put it again??
I'm a student and I have no experience regarding electricity.
Anyone knows what happen and how to fix it? It would be a great help because trying to call the electric company would be a bit complicated with my limited french.
You need to change a fuse, so no drama and something you should be able to do as the white ceramic ones simply unscrew. Inside you will see a white fuse which is bottle shaped and about the length of a AAA battery. Take this to the shop tomorrow and buy a couple, 1 to replace the blown one and a spare should it happen again... nice and easy and nothing to panic about
Should this happen more frequently, then further inspection should be carried out by a pro' via the letting agency. Worthwhile checking you weren't running to many appliances of one socket and didn't just overload it
Fuses are easy to change but you might just have a switch to flip on the circuit board. We have had a faulty appliance keep on doing this until the appliance eventually stopped working. Our electric shower also trips the switch if we lower or raise the temperature too fast. Don't wait until morning - look around for the circuit board.
If you change the fuses by yourself make sure you put the right ones. When I rented the apartment there was no light in one room, just to find out the previous people who rented the apartment had put wrong fuses so I had to change them.
If you don't feel comfortable changing them just call your owner, otherwise pop to Migros and find the right fuse for the box, unplug everything in that room or just turn off everything and screw the fuse really good, otherwise over time it can get unscrewed and start to make sounds/lights that are not pleasant.
I took a look at the electricity box already, sadly it's still the old one I suppose, there's no switch visible anywhere.
I hope the concierge would be here tomorrow morning it would be the best possible solution, but I don't see him around often, so I might need to do it myself. Asking a neighbor is a great advice though, I'll try that.
Thanks for the advice of unplugging things too, I'll make sure I'll do that before changing the fuse.
Yes!! My husband and I managed an apartment building on fuse box electric. Buy lots . This may happen all the time... And as Mrs. Doolittle poointed out, pay attention to the color coding to make sure it's an exact match . It must be the same color, amp, etc so be sure to take the blown fuse with you. It's usually pretty obvious which one blew as it looks burnt. Fear not! Next time if will be as easy as changing a lightbulb!
In the meantime, while it's out, test the wall plugs to see if any are on the fuse that is still operating. In our last apartment, which was in the USA so the electric is much different, we couldn't have our kettle and hair dryer going at the same time. The entire apartment was on two fuses!!! If you have some plugs that run on the fuse that is still good, then maybe you can move some things and balance it out a bit.