Emergency Electrician in Asheville, NC

Smoke, flames, or someone who has been shocked is a 911 call. Get out. A burning smell, a sparking or hot outlet, or a breaker that will not stay on is a call to us after you shut that breaker off, if it is safe. A repair that can sit until a scheduled visit is not an emergency.

1. Smoke, flames, or someone has been shocked?

   Yes. Get out and call 911. Stay out. A power line on the ground is the same: stay away, and call 911 and your utility. Duke Energy's storm page says to treat every downed line as energized.

   No. Go to the next question.

3. Is the service itself in trouble?

   Turn that breaker off, or the main, if your hands and the floor are dry. Then call (828) 551-9843 to schedule a visit if you have any of these:

   • A burning or rubbery smell at an outlet, a switch, or the panel
   • Sparks, or an outlet or panel that is hot or discolored
   • Water on a panel, an outlet, or a light
   • A breaker that trips again as soon as you reset it, or will not reset
   • Part of the house out, or some lights very bright and others dim
   • The whole house flickering
   • Storm or tree damage at the mast, the weatherhead, or the meter
5. One device, and the rest of the house is steady

   A single lamp flickering, one dead outlet, or a breaker that tripped once and stayed on after you unplugged the extra load can be scheduled. Call the same number and we will book it. It still should not sit for months. NFPA lists flickering, a warm outlet, sparks, a burning smell, and breakers that trip often as reasons to call an electrician.

NFPA's home electrical safety sheet says to call an electrician for sparks, a burning or rubbery smell, a discolored or warm outlet, lights that flicker or dim, and breakers that trip often. CPSC publication 518 says the same things in plainer words: an odor of hot insulation, parts that are hot to the touch, arcs and sparks, and lights that dim or flicker. We use that list. The flowchart is how we sort speed. NFPA does not split "one lamp" from "the whole house," so that split is ours.

Call us to schedule

• Burning smell at an outlet, a switch, a cord, or the panel. Hot insulation has a sharp, rubbery smell. Stop using the circuit.
• Sparking. At the outlet, inside the panel, or where a cord enters a plug. Unplug only if you can do it without touching the arc.
• A breaker that keeps tripping. If it opens again the moment you reset it, or the handle feels soft and will not stay on, leave it off. Resetting it over and over is how a failing connection gets hotter.
• Partial power. Some rooms on and some off, with no tripped breaker. Or lights that are suddenly very bright in one room and dim in another. Stop using whatever is still on. The voltage on the outlets that still work can be wrong. The cause can be in the panel or on the utility side of the meter.
• A hot panel, a buzz or crackle that was not there last week, or a cover that is discolored. Do not take the cover off. That repair path is electrical panel repair. If the panel is a Federal Pacific or a Zinsco, we do not patch it. Replacement is an electrical panel upgrade.
• Water near electrical equipment. A wet panel, a flooded basement with live outlets, a mast that is pouring water into the meter. Do not touch wet equipment. Do not stand in water to reach a breaker.
• Storm or tree damage to the service mast, the weatherhead, or the meter. See who owns which piece below before you climb anything.
• The whole house flickering. That is the service until we or the utility show otherwise. One bulb flickering in one fixture, with every other light steady, can wait for a scheduled visit and is ordinary electrical repair.

Can be scheduled

• One lamp or one fixture flickering, and the rest of the house is normal.
• One outlet dead, with no smell, no heat, and no sparks.
• A breaker that tripped once when a heater and a microwave shared it, and stayed on after you unplugged one of them.
• A project: a new circuit, a fan, a light, a generator you want installed before the next storm.

Those still get a call. They do not get the same urgency as a panel that is hot.

Call the utility when the problem is their wire or their meter. Call us when it is the mast, the meter box, or anything past the meter. A lot of storm calls are both, and the order matters: they will not reconnect a damaged house.

Duke Energy

Overhead service drop, underground service line, and the electric meter. Report an outage or a downed line to Duke. For Duke Energy Progress the published number is 800-419-6356. For Duke Energy Carolinas it is 800-769-3766.

Homeowner

Attachment hardware, weatherhead, mast (Duke's flyer calls it the riser), meter box, and the panel inside. A licensed electrician repairs these. On a mobile home, Duke's same flyer also puts the service pole, and the line from that pole to the meter, on the customer.

The drawing is the usual overhead house, from Duke Energy Progress's customer flyer on meter and service-connection damage. Duke installs and maintains the overhead service line, the underground service line, and the electric meter. The attachment hardware, weatherhead, riser (the mast), and meter box are the customer's, and a licensed electrician is who Duke expects to repair them. The flyer says to assume a damaged weatherhead, line, or meter box is energized.

Duke's April 2026 service requirements manual says the same thing in contractor language: the company's overhead service drop connects to the customer's service entrance conductors, and Duke owns the facilities on its side of the point of delivery. Duke designates that point. The panel in the house is past it.

Report an outage on Duke's restoration page. The numbers Duke publishes there are 800-419-6356 for Duke Energy Progress and 800-769-3766 for Duke Energy Carolinas. If the name on your power bill is an electric cooperative, call that utility. We do not work on their lines either. Speaking to a customer-service representative does not move you up the restoration list. Duke says so on its outage FAQ.

Your neighbor having lights, while you do not, is not proof the problem is in your panel. Duke's restoration page lists three ordinary reasons: the neighborhood is on more than one circuit, their service comes off a line that was restored first, or the damage is on your individual service or meter. Call Duke and call us. We can tell you if the house side is what is holding the reconnect.

Wind and water split the job in two. Duke rebuilds the lines. We rebuild the parts of the service that belong to the house, and the utility will not energize a service entrance that is still broken.

On October 4, 2024, Duke Energy reported that more than 2.16 million customers in the Carolinas had been restored as of 2:30 p.m., and that about 167,000 customers in the mountains of North Carolina were still without power that afternoon. Duke named Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, northern McDowell, Mitchell, and Rutherford counties as places where it was rebuilding backbone lines after Hurricane Helene. Those figures are Duke's, for that afternoon. They are not a count of our calls, and they are not a current outage total.

The same Duke release tells homeowners the part we actually do. If the building is flooded or damaged, an electrician has to make the repairs and a local inspector has to sign off before power can be restored. If the meter box is pulled off the house, or off a mobile-home pole, the homeowner hires the electrician to reattach it. Bring us that damage. We repair the mast, the weatherhead, the meter enclosure, and the wet panel. Duke repairs the drop and the meter.

Duke's outage FAQ also says the company does not pay for food that spoils in a storm. Claims of that kind go to your insurer or to FEMA, not to us and not to Duke.

After a storm, a neighbor's lights are a poor test of your own service. Use the ownership diagram. A mast ripped off the siding, a weatherhead full of leaves and water, or a meter box hanging by the wires is a call to us even if Duke's outage map already shows your street as restored.