Came home from work Thursday and all the digital clocks in our house are flashing, as if there's been a power cut. Suppliers Contact Energy and Vector say there were no outages in our area on Thursday.

Then we notice that we have no hot water. Checked the switch/fuse box and the hot water switch is on. I guess we will need to get a plumber in this morning but would welcome any comments or advice on all this.

is it likely that we will need a new element in our cylinder (in fact, can that even be done?) or a whole new cylinder? Could something failing in the cylinder have caused a spike that tripped all the clocks, or could a system spike have caused the problem with our hot water cylinder?

Don't know much about all this and keen to hear thoughts or ideas. Thanks.