· by Michael Blair, Nashville's Electrician
Most calls we get after dark start the same way: something electrical is wrong, and the person on the phone does not know whether it can wait. Some of it cannot. A few situations belong to 911 or to Nashville Electric Service before they belong to any electrician, and a few others need power shut off and a repair tonight. Plenty of what feels urgent is safe to leave off until morning. This is how we sort those calls, what we tell people to do in the meantime, and what happens when one of our electricians comes out on an emergency troubleshooting and repair call.
Fire, smoke or a line on the ground comes first
Electrical fires are not rare. In the NFPA’s Home Structure Fires report, electrical distribution or lighting equipment was the leading cause of home fire property damage over 2019 to 2023, with an annual average of 31,650 such fires, 430 deaths, 1,300 injuries and $1.6 billion in direct property damage. So when a caller describes smoke, flame, or sparking that keeps going at a panel, an outlet or a fixture, we tell them to get everyone out and call 911, and to call us after the fire department has been. An electrician on the way is no substitute for a fire truck.
A downed line is the other one that skips us entirely. Nashville Electric Service says on its outages page to always assume a downed line is live, stay at least 30 feet away and call 911 immediately. That holds for the service drop that runs from the pole to your house as well as the lines along the street. It holds even when the line looks dead and the house has no power, and it holds for a line lying in a puddle, against a chain-link fence or tangled in a fallen limb after one of our spring storms.
Shut it off and call an electrician tonight
The next tier is the one an emergency electrician exists for: a burning or hot-plastic smell with no smoke, black scorch marks around an outlet or switch plate, a panel that buzzes, crackles or feels hot on its cover, water dripping onto wiring or a panel, or a main breaker that trips and will not stay on. None of these needs a fire truck yet. All of them are a connection or a device failing under load, and they get worse with current running through them. Where the smell or the scorch is on one circuit, we tell callers to switch that breaker off and leave it off. Where it is the panel itself, or anywhere water is involved, we tell them to leave it alone and call.
Do not take the panel cover off to look. The CPSC’s AFCI guide points out that a panel is usually still electrically live even with the main breaker turned off, because the conductors coming in from the utility are ahead of it. Water is the same story: the CPSC’s home electrical safety checklist warns that mixing electricity and water can cause a serious shock or fire hazard, which is why we never want anyone wading across a flooded basement or crawl space to reach a panel. Stay out of the water, keep the family out of that room, and call us. If anything starts to smoke while you wait, it has moved back up to 911.
- Burning smell or scorched outlet on one circuit: turn that breaker off
- Hot, buzzing or crackling panel: keep the cover on, keep away, call
- Water on a panel or wiring: do not walk through it, call
- Main trips again right after a reset: leave it off, call
When half the house goes dark
Losing power to part of the house, or having some rooms bright and others dim, is a different kind of call. First look outside and check whether the neighbors are out too. If they are, it is an outage, and NES takes outage reports by text, through its app or at 615-234-0000, as listed on its outages page. If only your house is affected, and especially if lights brighten and dim as big appliances cycle, the problem is usually a failing connection on the service or in the panel. We covered that pattern in more detail in flickering lights and when they are dangerous. It is a tonight call when appliances are acting strangely, and a turn-off-the-big-loads-and-call call either way.
After a storm, look at where the line meets the house. According to the NES Storm Center, NES maintains the lines up to the home, the homeowner is responsible for the equipment on the house, and if the weatherhead, power mast or meter base is damaged, NES lineworkers cannot safely reconnect power. In its storm Q&A, NES tells customers in that spot to contact a licensed, registered electrician. That is a common reason a whole street gets power back and one house stays dark, and it is work our crews do: the mast or meter base is repaired, and then NES can reconnect. While you wait, the Storm Center also warns never to run a generator indoors or connect one to house wiring without proper transfer equipment.
What an emergency call involves, and what can wait
When one of our electricians arrives on an emergency, the first job is making it safe, not making it pretty. That means finding which circuit or connection is failing, isolating it so the rest of the house can have power back where that is safe, and checking the panel for heat damage at the breakers and the bus. Sometimes the repair is done that night: a burned receptacle replaced, a loose lug tightened, a damaged breaker swapped. Sometimes the safe answer is leaving one circuit off until morning, when parts and daylight make a proper repair possible. We tell you which it is and why before we leave.
Plenty of problems feel urgent and are not. A single dead outlet or light with no smell and no heat, a GFCI that will not reset in a bathroom you can do without for a night, a doorbell or a ceiling fan that quit, or a breaker that tripped once and held after a reset can all wait for a regular visit. A breaker that trips again and again is not an emergency either, though it deserves attention, and what a breaker that keeps tripping is telling you explains why. Our electricians cover Nashville and Davidson County and the surrounding counties, and if you are not sure which side of the line your problem falls on, call or send us a note and we will tell you plainly.
- Can wait: one dead outlet or light, no heat, no smell
- Can wait: a breaker that tripped once and held
- Can wait: a GFCI that will not reset in a room you can skip
Sources
- Nashville Electric Service, Outages — Assume downed lines are live, stay 30 feet away and call 911; how to report an outage
- Nashville Electric Service, Storm Center — NES maintains lines to the home; damaged weatherhead, mast or meter base prevents reconnection; generator safety
- Nashville Electric Service, Winter Storm Fern Q&A — Contact a licensed, registered electrician for a damaged weatherhead, mast or meter base
- NFPA, Home Structure Fires (Hall and McGree, August 2025) — Electrical distribution or lighting equipment fires, 2019 to 2023 annual averages
- CPSC, Preventing Home Fires: Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupters (Pub. 5133) — Panels are usually live even with the main breaker off
- CPSC, Home Electrical Safety Checklist (Pub. 513) — Mixing electricity and water can cause a serious shock or fire hazard