An outlet that worked yesterday does not work today. Or a breaker went, you pushed it back, and it went again. Either way the useful question is not what is wrong. It is what you can see from where you are standing, because that is what turns a vague call into a scheduled one.
This page is about observing and writing down. It is not a repair procedure and it is not advice about your lease.
Stop resetting it
A breaker that trips once is a breaker. A breaker that trips again after you reset it is telling you something, and pushing it back a third time does not change the answer. Our commercial electrical page puts it plainly: a repeatedly tripping breaker often means an overloaded circuit, a bad breaker, or a short somewhere in the space.
None of those three gets better with another reset, and one of them gets worse.
What not to touch
There is a short list of things that are not a tenant's job, whatever the lease says about who pays.
- Do not open a panel cover. The panel door is fine. The cover behind it is not.
- Do not work on anything that is wet, or that sits near something that is wet.
- Do not cut power to equipment somebody else depends on without telling them first.
- If you smell burning, see scorching or discoloration around a device, or hear anything from a panel, stop, keep people away from it, and make the call from somewhere else.
Everything else on this page is looking and writing, which is safe and which is the part that actually saves time.
The five things worth writing down
Do this before you call anybody. It takes a few minutes and it is the difference between a diagnostic visit and a scheduled fix.
- Exactly what is out. Not "the back office." Which outlets, which fixtures, which pieces of equipment. Walk it and list them.
- What still works around it. The things next to the dead ones that are fine matter as much as the dead ones. That contrast is how a circuit gets traced.
- What changed. New equipment plugged in, a space heater, a build out, a delivery that got parked against a wall, weather, or work somebody else in the building was doing. Something usually changed and the tenant is the only person who knows what.
- Whether it is repeatable. Does it go every time the same machine starts, or at the same time of day, or at random. Repeatable is easier than random, and either answer is useful.
- Whether any outlet nearby has test and reset buttons on its face. Note which ones and where they are. Do not start pressing them as a diagnostic. Just say they are there.
Take photos of the panel directory and of the affected area while you are at it. A phone photo of a handwritten panel legend answers more questions than a description of it.
What that information changes
A call that opens with "an outlet is dead" is a visit that starts with someone walking your space to find out what you already know. A call that opens with a list of what is out, what is fine, what changed and whether it repeats starts at the actual problem.
It also gives you the record afterward. Whatever you write down before the work becomes the front half of the file you keep, and the itemized quote and invoice become the back half. That matters later, when the question is what was already covered and when.
If somebody was already out here
If another electrician started this, or looked at it and never came back, that is a different situation and it has its own page.
When you are ready to call
See commercial electrical service for what we handle and to get it looked at and quoted. Bring the list.
For the wider set of operating questions a triple-net lease hands you, read the triple-net tenant guide.
Your lease is the final word on what it requires and who arranges it. This page describes the usual pattern and does not interpret your document.
Any work beyond the original quote gets approved by you, in writing, before we start.