Why should I call an electrician?

Let me tell you about a couple of recent service calls. A little while ago I had a call to check out a chandelier that stopped working. My customer was certain the issue was in the light fixture since it had stopped working around the time it had been bumped into when some furniture was moved. When I investigated I determined that the fixture was working properly. The next step was to check the switch. By removing the switch and directly wiring the fixture I demonstrated that the fixture was working. The switch was a three-way with a dimmer and I ohmed it out to find that while the switch would work as a single pole the dimmer function was broken.

In another case the customer wanted me to swap out a thermostat that wasn’t working. When I removed the old thermostat I checked the voltage on the wires and found some unusual readings. I went to the breaker to check voltage there and found the breaker was bad. Once I replaced the breaker and installed the thermostat everything worked like it was supposed to.

The point is that while your electrical problem may seem simple it can be that the real problem will take the training and experience of an electrician to find and fix correctly. If you have a mystery problem by all means try the obvious stuff but if a new bulb or resetting the breaker doesn’t fix it, please call a licensed electrician.