Emergency Electrician in Minneapolis & St. Paul
Tell us what you need, and we’ll match you with the right licensed pro.
If you are smelling burning plastic, watching an outlet spark, or standing in front of a panel that is hot to the touch, skip the rest of this page and call us. If you have time to read, the next section will tell you whether what you are seeing needs an electrician tonight or can safely wait until morning — and whether the problem is even yours to fix.
Randy’s has served Twin Cities homeowners since 2002. Our electricians are licensed, our pricing is approved by you before any work starts, and our vans carry thousands of parts so most emergencies are finished in a single visit.
Schedule Your Service
Is this an electrical emergency? Here’s how to tell.
Not every electrical problem needs an after-hours call, and not every one can wait. Use this to decide.
Before you call — is it your problem or Xcel’s?
This one catches Twin Cities homeowners constantly, and getting it wrong costs a day.
The power line running from the pole to your house — the service drop — belongs to Xcel Energy. If it is down, damaged, or disconnected at the pole, that is Xcel’s repair and their cost.
On a standard overhead residential service, everything from where those wires attach to your house inward is generally yours. That includes the service mast (the metal pipe coming through the roof or up the wall), the weatherhead at the top, the meter socket, and the service entrance conductors. Xcel’s published requirements are explicit on the socket: purchasing, installing, connecting, and maintaining self-contained meter sockets is the responsibility of the customer. Underground services and specialty metering set the line in a different place, so it’s worth confirming for your particular service.
This matters most after a storm. When ice or a falling branch pulls a mast away from a house, Xcel will disconnect the drop for safety — but they will not reconnect it until the mast is repaired by a licensed electrician and released by an inspector. Under the requirements Xcel files with Minnesota municipalities, before a meter goes back on a service that has been rewired, altered, or repaired, an inspection release must be received, or a licensed electrician must submit a signed certificate confirming the work meets the National Electrical Code and Xcel’s own standard.
In practice: call Xcel to report the outage and get the drop made safe, then call an electrician to repair the mast and clear the inspection. Homeowners who call only Xcel sit without power waiting for a crew that was never coming.
We do this repair regularly and handle the permit and inspection coordination as part of the job.
Emergency Electrician FAQs
Anything that can start a fire, shock someone, or damage the house if it waits. Burning smells, smoke, sparking or arcing, scorch marks around outlets, a hot or buzzing panel, a breaker that trips instantly on every reset, water on or near electrical equipment, shocks from appliances or taps, partial power loss that isn’t a utility outage, and storm damage to your mast or meter. If you see fire or active arcing, call 911 first, then call us.
Within dispatch hours, usually a few hours, depending on your location and what’s happening. We confirm a two-hour arrival window when you call rather than giving you a vague all-day slot, and we text you when your electrician is en route.
Keep people safe and limit risk while help is on the way:
If you are unsure whether it is safe to remain inside, wait outdoors until your electrician arrives.
We begin with a focused safety check and targeted diagnostics to find the root cause of your issue. Your electrician will explain what they are seeing, present you with clear options and a quote, and get your approval before work starts.
Common on-site solutions include:
Minneapolis, St. Paul, and communities throughout the metro are dispatched from Maple Grove, St. Paul, and Rogers. If you’re not sure your address is in range, call, and we’ll tell you straight away.
Check your neighbours first. If the whole street is dark, it’s a utility outage — report it to Xcel Energy, and there’s nothing an electrician can do until they restore the line. If only your house is out, or only part of your house, that points to a problem on your side of the meter, and that’s worth a call. Partial power loss in particular can indicate a failing neutral, which can damage appliances throughout the home.
You do — through a licensed electrician. The service drop from the pole is Xcel’s. The mast, weatherhead, and meter socket are the homeowner’s. Xcel will disconnect for safety but won’t reconnect until the mast is repaired and an inspection release is issued or a licensed electrician certifies the work. Call Xcel to make it safe, then call us for the repair and the inspection coordination.
It depends. A breaker that trips occasionally under a heavy load and resets normally is telling you a circuit is overloaded — worth fixing, not worth an emergency call. A breaker that trips instantly every time you reset it, or trips alongside heat, buzzing, or a burning smell, is an emergency. Don’t keep resetting it.
Get an electrician out today
Describe what’s happening and we’ll tell you honestly whether it needs someone now or can wait until morning. Licensed electricians, two-hour arrival windows, upfront pricing, and a van stocked to finish the job.
