One Socket Dead While the Rest Work Fine? We'll Find Out Why in Shirley
A qualified electrician who traces a single dead socket back to the real fault and restores power there and then — not a guess and a shrug.
Booking fee plus hourly labour — the price is confirmed before any work starts.
What this costs
| Booked 14+ days ahead | £25 booking fee £85 per hour |
|---|---|
| Booked within 48 hours | £100 booking fee £65 per hour |
| Same-day call-out | £220 booking fee £45 per hour |
The booking fee secures the visit. Labour is then charged by the hour, so you only pay for the time the job actually takes.
Booking fee £25–£220
£25 + £85/hr booked 14+ days ahead, £100 + £65/hr inside 48 hours, £220 + £45/hr same day. Agreed before we arrive.
Covered under Sockets & Outlets
Electrical › Sockets & Outlets — one of 19 documented jobs in this section.
Same-day socket not working
Urgent jobs can often be booked for today. Ask when you book and we will confirm the slot before you pay anything.
15 service areas
Birmingham, Coventry, Dorridge and 12 more across the West Midlands.
When One Socket Stops and the Rest Carry On
It is an odd sort of fault. The kettle works in one socket, you move the plug two feet along the wall and nothing happens. Everything else in the room carries on as normal, so it is not a trip in the consumer unit and it is not a power cut. What you are almost certainly looking at is a problem confined to that one outlet or the cable that feeds it — which is good news, because faults like that are usually straightforward to find and fix once you know where to look.
Why a Single Socket Fails
A socket on its own can go dead for several reasons, and they are worth understanding because they have very different fixes. The most common is a loose screw terminal. Every time a plug is pulled out against a stiff grip, the outlet is flexed slightly, and over the years a terminal can work loose. A loose connection does not fail quietly — it arcs, runs hot, and eventually burns the conductor back until the connection breaks completely. If we open an outlet and find discoloured or charred copper, that is usually the story.
Other causes are just as likely. The outlet's internal contacts and shutters wear out, particularly in heavily used sockets in kitchens and lounges. A socket fed from a spur depends on a joint back at the ring, often inside a ceiling rose or junction box in the loft or under the floorboards, and a corroded or damaged joint there will kill the spur while leaving the ring itself untouched. And sometimes the cable itself is the victim — nails driven through floorboards, rodents chewing insulation, or a leak letting water into a box.
What Happens If You Leave It
The temptation is to tape over it or simply stop using that outlet, and for a while that works. The trouble is the workaround. A single dead socket soon becomes a trailing extension lead run across a doorway or under a rug, which is exactly the kind of arrangement that causes trips, damaged cables and fires. Meanwhile, if the original fault was a loose, arcing connection, it has not gone away — it sits there inside the wall, slowly getting worse. A dead outlet that smells warm, crackles when you approach it, or has scorch marks around the slots should not be left at all.
How We Find the Real Cause
Diagnosis starts with the outlet itself. We isolate the circuit, test for voltage at the socket and check whether the problem is upstream or in the accessory. Opening the outlet usually tells us a great deal: scorched terminals, melted insulation or a conductor that has burnt clean off all point to their own causes. From there we follow the supply back — to the joint on the spur, the previous socket on the ring, or the point where the cable was damaged. Proper dead testing and continuity checks mean we find the break rather than replacing parts on spec.
How We Put It Right
The fix depends on what the tests show. A loose or burnt termination is cut back to sound copper and remade properly. An outlet with worn internals or heat damage is replaced with a new one, wired to the correct terminals. A damaged length of cable is re-run or jointed in an accessible, compliant enclosure rather than buried and forgotten. When the work is done we test the socket dead, energise it, check it under load and confirm the rest of the circuit has been unaffected by what we found.
Keeping It Working
Once the socket is back, a few habits keep it healthy. Avoid overcrowded multi-plug adaptors, which load outlets far beyond what they were designed for. Pull plugs out by the plug body, never by the cable, so the outlet is not flexed every time. And keep an eye out for the early warning signs — warmth, crackling, a faceplate that discolours — because a socket that is starting to fail usually tells you before it stops.
When to Call Us
Book a visit if a socket has gone completely dead, if your own reset-and-replug attempts have got nowhere, or if the outlet shows any sign of heat, smell or scorching alongside the failure. If the dead socket is one of several, or a whole room has gone off, mention that when you call — it changes the diagnosis and we will bring the right equipment.
Book Your Socket Repair Today
Dead sockets do not sort themselves out, and the workaround is usually worse than the fault. Call us or use the booking form and we will get an electrician to you, often the same day. You approve the full price before any work starts, and you are left with a socket that works the way it should.
How the price works
We charge a booking fee to hold your slot, then an hourly rate for the work itself. The fee changes with how soon you need us; the hourly rate changes with the slot you choose. You approve the price before we start, so there is no surprise on the invoice.
Booked 14+ days ahead
£25 booking fee
then £85 per hour of labour
Best value. Book the slot now, pay the smallest booking fee.
Booked within 48 hours
£100 booking fee
then £65 per hour of labour
For jobs that can wait a day or two but not a fortnight.
Same-day call-out
£220 booking fee
then £45 per hour of labour
Urgent problems: standing water, no heat, no power, leaks.
Book the slot
Choose the window that suits you and pay the booking fee. That holds your place in the diary.
We diagnose on site
The engineer confirms the cause and tells you what the job involves and how long it should take.
You approve, we work
Nothing goes ahead until you agree the price. Labour is then charged per hour at your slot rate.
One socket out while every other one in the room works is a strange, nagging fault. It usually points to a problem at that outlet or in the short run of cable feeding it, rather than anything dramatic in the house's wiring. We test the socket, follow the cable back to wherever the connection has failed, and put it right properly so the outlet is safe to use again.
What our customers say about our electrical service
4.6 out of 5 from 11 reviews
Does what it says on the tin
No complaints about the work itself — clear explanation, sensible advice, fair price. Booking online was easy enough once I found the right job page.
Job: Smoke Alarm Replacement
Fixed it, but took longer than expected
Work itself was fine and tidy. Communication beforehand was patchy — I did not get the confirmation message and had to ring to check the slot. Would still use again.
Job: Flickering Outdoor Lights
Turned up when they said
Third time we have used Maintenance Men, and the same experience each time: agreed price, proper explanation, job done in one visit. The hourly rate is fair for the standard of work.
Job: Appliance Causing Power Trip
Book Socket Not Working
Tell us what is happening and choose a slot. If you are not sure this is the right job, use the diagnosis panel — it narrows the problem down before you book.
- Booking fee confirmed up front
- Hourly labour, agreed before work starts
- Same-day slots for urgent problems
Questions people ask about socket not working
Straight answers to the things customers ask most often before booking.
How much will it cost to fix my dead socket?
You pay a booking fee when you reserve your visit, and labour is then charged hourly at a rate that depends on how quickly you need an electrician. Before we lift a screwdriver we will explain exactly what the job involves and give you the full price, so nothing happens without your approval.
Can I fix a dead socket myself?
It is worth checking whether the socket has an isolated switch or whether a neighbouring outlet works, but beyond that we would say no. Opening an outlet means working on connections that may be live or burnt, and mis-wiring a socket can be dangerous for whoever uses it next. This is a job for a qualified electrician.
What will the electrician actually do on the visit?
They will confirm the fault is with the socket rather than the supply, isolate the circuit, and open the outlet to inspect the terminations. From there they follow the cable back to the point of failure, whether that is a joint, a damaged section or the outlet itself, and quote you for the repair before carrying it out.
Is a dead socket dangerous?
A socket that has simply stopped working is often not dangerous in itself, but the reason it died can be — a burnt-out connection inside the outlet is a genuine fire risk. If the socket is warm, discoloured, crackling or smells of anything, stop using it and get it looked at urgently.
Will you need to pull up my floorboards to trace the fault?
Usually not. Most single-socket faults are found in the outlet itself or in an accessible joint such as the spur connection or the neighbouring socket on the ring. If the cable has been damaged under a floor we will tell you exactly what needs lifting and why before we do it, and we put everything back as we found it.
Need socket not working sorted in Shirley?
Book a slot in the diary and pay only the booking fee up front. We confirm the rest before we start.