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Burning smell, sparks, a buzzing panel, or half your home suddenly dark? Don't wait it out. Call now and a licensed emergency electrician will help you make it safe and get to you fast — anywhere in Pierce County.
If you see active smoke or flame, get everyone out and call 911 first. For a downed power line, stay far back, assume it's live, and call the utility and 911. For everything else electrical, call us at (253) 320-9866.
Some electrical problems can wait for a scheduled appointment. These cannot. If you're seeing any of the following, stop what you're doing and call — it's cheaper and far safer to have a licensed electrician assess it right away than to hope it holds:
While you're getting us on the phone, a few steps make almost any electrical emergency safer. If you can reach your panel safely, switch off the breaker for the affected circuit — or the main breaker to cut power to the whole home — to stop the problem at the source. Don't touch exposed or downed wires, and keep well clear of any wiring that's near water; if there's standing water around outlets or the panel, don't wade into it. Unplug sensitive electronics so a surge doesn't take them out when power is restored. And if a power line is down outside, treat it as live no matter what — stay back, keep others and pets away, and call the utility and 911. Then call us and we'll walk you through the rest.
This is the first thing to sort out, because it decides who to call. If the lights are out up and down your street and your neighbors are dark too, that's a utility outage — restoring it is the power company's job, not an electrician's. In Pierce County that's Tacoma Power in the City of Tacoma and much of the surrounding area, and Puget Sound Energy (PSE) across most of the rest of the county; report the outage to them and they'll dispatch line crews. But if your home is the only one without power, or only part of your home has gone dark, the trouble is almost always on your side of the meter — a tripped main, a failed breaker, a burned connection, or a damaged service — and that's exactly what an emergency electrician handles. When you're not sure, call us and we'll help you figure out which it is in a couple of minutes.
Honest note: a widespread neighborhood or windstorm outage is the utility's responsibility, and no electrician can restore the grid. Call Tacoma Power or PSE for that. Where we help is everything downstream of your meter — your home's own wiring, panel, and service.
Our emergency electricians take the calls that can't wait: total or partial power loss traced to your panel or service, breakers that keep tripping, burning smells and hot or sparking outlets, damaged or overheating panels, electrical faults after a storm or flood, damaged service masts and weatherheads, and making a scene safe after fire or water damage. We diagnose the fault, make the situation safe, and either fix it on the spot or stabilize it and schedule the full repair — always to Washington code, always by a licensed electrician. If what you need turns out to be a bigger job, like a panel replacement or a rewire, we'll tell you straight and get power safely restored in the meantime.
You get Bill or Patrick. Not a call center, not a dispatcher, not a menu. There are two of us and neither of us ignores his phone. Describe what's happening and we'll help you make it safe on the call — usually that means getting the right breaker off — before anyone gets in a truck.
Response time depends on where you are and what we're already on, so we'll give you an honest ETA instead of a promise we can't keep. We carry the tools and parts to finish most emergency repairs on the first visit, and you'll know the price before we start.
Straight answer, because nobody likes finding this out afterwards.
If the work is booked in advance, it's our standard rate. If you need us today and it isn't already on the schedule, we'll leave the job we're on and come to you — that's our priority rate, and it's higher. That's not a penalty for having a bad day; it's that somebody else's job is getting pushed back for yours.
Either way, you'll hear the number from Bill or Patrick on the phone before we head out — not after the work is done.
If you smell burning, call us — don't sit on it working out what it might cost. The call itself is free. Tell us what you're smelling and we'll tell you straight whether it needs us tonight or whether it can safely wait till morning, which keeps it at the standard rate.
A burning smell, smoke, or scorch marks; sparks or arcing; a buzzing or hot panel; part of the home losing power; exposed or downed wires; water reaching electrical; or breakers that trip repeatedly. If there's active smoke or flame, call 911 first, then call us at (253) 320-9866.
If your neighbors are dark too, it's a utility outage — report it to Tacoma Power or Puget Sound Energy. If only your home (or part of it) is out, the problem is likely on your side of the meter, and that's what we fix.
Yes. Call (253) 320-9866 and you'll get Bill or Patrick — there are two of us and neither of us ignores his phone. Tell us what's happening and we'll help you make it safe on the call, then give you an honest ETA.
Yes, and we'll tell you the number before we head out rather than after. Work booked in advance is our standard rate. If you need us today and it isn't already on the schedule, we leave the job we're on to get to you — that's our priority rate. The call itself costs you nothing, so ring us and ask.
If it's safe, switch off the affected breaker or the main. Don't touch downed or exposed wires or anything electrical near water. Unplug sensitive electronics. Treat any downed line outside as live and call the utility and 911. Then call us.
Don't Wait It Out
A licensed emergency electrician is ready to help across Tacoma, Puyallup, and all of Pierce County, WA.
