A good home electrical safety check is mostly things you can look at yourself in ten minutes: your sockets and plugs, whether your RCD works, how old your fuse board is, and any warning signs like scorching, buzzing or repeated tripping. The one thing you cannot do yourself is a full inspection of the wiring behind the walls, which is what an EICR is for. Here is a checklist worth running once a year.
How do I check my sockets and plugs?
Most electrical trouble in a home shows itself at the sockets first, so this is the place to start.
- Look for scorch marks, browning or melting around any socket or plug. That is overheating, and it needs sorting straight away.
- Check for cracked or broken faceplates, which expose live parts.
- Feel whether any socket or plug is warm or hot in normal use. Sockets should be cool.
- Avoid daisy-chained extension leads and overloaded adaptors, especially the old block-style ones. One extension into a socket is fine, an extension into an extension into a four-way is asking for trouble.
- Make sure high-load appliances like heaters, kettles and tumble dryers go straight into a wall socket, not through a thin extension lead.
If a socket is warm, scorched or sparks when you plug something in, stop using it and get it looked at.
How do I test my RCD?
Your RCD is the device that cuts the power fast enough to protect you from a serious shock, and it has a built-in test you should run about every six months.
- Find the button marked “T” or “Test” on your fuse board.
- Press it. The RCD should trip instantly and switch off the circuits it protects.
- Switch it back on to restore power.
If it trips, it is working. If pressing the test button does nothing, the RCD is not protecting you and needs an electrician. If you press it and find you have no test button at all, your board likely has no RCD protection, which is one of the clearest signs your fuse board needs replacing. Reset any clocks or timers afterwards, since the test cuts the power briefly.
How old is my fuse board, and does it matter?
Yes, age matters, because protection standards have moved on a lot. Open the cover and look:
- Rewireable fuses (where you fit a strip of fuse wire by hand) mean a board that is decades old and has no modern protection.
- No test buttons usually means no RCD, so a fault that should trip the board could instead give someone a shock.
- A board more than around 25 to 30 years old is usually missing modern protection and is doing a job for heavier modern loads, EV chargers, electric showers and far more appliances, than it was ever designed for.
A modern consumer unit has rows of small switches in a metal enclosure with test buttons. If yours does not look like that, it is worth an inspection.
What are the warning signs I should never ignore?
Some things mean stop and call an electrician now, not next month:
- A burning or fishy smell from a socket, switch or the fuse board.
- Scorch marks or discolouration anywhere on the electrics.
- Buzzing, crackling or humming from the board or a socket.
- Flickering lights that are not down to the bulb.
- Circuits that keep tripping for no clear reason, which usually means a real fault worth diagnosing rather than living with. There is a full walk-through in why does my electricity keep tripping.
- Hot or sparking sockets and switches.
These are how electrical fires start. They are not something to put up with.
How often should the wiring itself be inspected?
The visual checks above catch a lot, but the condition of the wiring behind your walls needs a proper test, an EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report). The general guidance is:
- Owner-occupied homes: roughly every 10 years, or sooner if the property is older, has not been tested in a long time, or you have just moved in and have no paperwork.
- Rented homes in Scotland: at least every 5 years by law under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 and the Repairing Standard, carried out by a competent person and after a change of tenancy where the certificate has lapsed. More on that on the landlord EICR page.
An EICR tests every circuit and grades any issues, so you know whether your installation is genuinely sound or needs work. It is the one item on this list that needs a qualified electrician with test equipment.
What if I find a problem on the checklist?
If you spot a warning sign, do not ignore it and do not try to investigate inside the fuse board or behind socket fronts yourself, the live parts in there are dangerous. The safe move is to get it diagnosed. A fault-finding visit pins down what is actually wrong, and Jack tells you straight whether it is a quick fix, a remedial or a sign the board has had its day, with the cost in writing before any work starts.