Emergency Electrician — Available 24/7

Electrical trouble does not wait for a convenient day. If you smell something burning, see a scorch mark, or lose power to part of your building, treat it as urgent: stop using whatever is involved, keep people away from it, and call an electrician. Lighthouse Electric of Point Place is a licensed Ohio electrical contractor (license #50207), based in Point Place and working Toledo and south along the I-75 corridor to Dayton. Emergency service is available 24/7. Call 419-262-0078.

Some electrical problems need the circuit shut off and looked at right away. Others are real but keep until a scheduled visit. Both are worth calling about, and knowing which one you have gets you a straighter answer on the phone.

What counts as an electrical emergency

Call right away, and stop using the affected circuit, if you notice any of the following.

• A burning smell. A hot-plastic or fishy odor near a panel, an outlet, or a light fixture, with no obvious source. Do not wait this one out.
• Scorch marks, discoloration, or heat. A brown or black stain around an outlet or switch, or a cover plate that is warm to the touch. Stop using it and call.
• Sparking or arcing. A visible spark, a popping sound, or a flash when you plug something in or flip a switch.
• A breaker that will not stay reset. If it trips again the moment you reset it, leave it off and call. Do not keep resetting it.
• Water reaching electrical equipment. A flooded basement with a panel or outlets in it, a roof leak over a fixture, or a burst pipe near a subpanel. Do not go into standing water to investigate.
• Damage to the service mast or meter. The mast, weatherhead, and meter enclosure on the outside of the building take the brunt of storms and falling limbs. Bent, pulled loose, or hanging equipment out there is not something to approach. Stay clear of any drooping or downed wire, and call your utility as well.
• Partial power loss. Half the outlets in a house, or one whole side of a building, going dead while the rest stays live. Call this one in rather than waiting to see whether it clears.

What to do before we arrive

Keep it simple, and do not put yourself in the middle of it.

• If you see fire or smoke, or you smell burning and cannot find the source, call 911 first. Everything else can be sorted out after.
• Stop using the circuit. Unplug what you safely can, without touching anything hot, wet, or scorched.
• If the panel is dry, easy to reach, and you can get to it without walking through water, switch off the breaker for the affected circuit. If any of that is not true, leave it and wait for us.
• Do not touch, open, or pull apart an outlet, switch, or fixture that is smoking, warm, or discolored.
• Get people and pets out of the area, and keep them out.
• Note what happened just before it started: an appliance you plugged in, a storm, a roof or plumbing leak, work done recently. That detail shortens the diagnosis.

What usually goes on the schedule instead

Plenty of electrical problems are real but not urgent, and calling them in as routine work usually gets them handled sooner and for less. If anything in the first list is also true, go by that list instead.

• One dead outlet, with everything else in the room working normally.
• A light fixture, switch, or ceiling fan to swap out.
• A breaker that has tripped once and reset cleanly, with nothing hot, smelling, or discolored.
• Flickering that has been there for months rather than starting today.
• Planned work: added circuits, a panel or service upgrade, an EV charger, outdoor or garage circuits, a remodel.

These go on the schedule as a normal service call. Our standard service call and diagnostic is $180, and typical lead time is about a week.

Commercial emergencies

For a business, the cost of an electrical failure is measured in what stops. A restaurant with a dead walk-in cooler is losing inventory by the hour. A medical office with a dark exam room cannot see patients. A manufacturing floor with a tripped feeder is paying a crew to stand still.

We work with restaurants, small businesses, medical offices, and manufacturing facilities, and we travel the I-75 corridor from Toledo south for commercial work. When you call, tell us what is down and what it is costing you, so we can tell you where we can fit you in. If the fastest path is getting a critical circuit or a piece of equipment back on while a larger repair is scheduled, we will say so. More on the ongoing side of this is on our commercial electrical services page.