I'm done banging my head off the wall, need some insight before I call the electrician. Had a few outlets go out last night. The image below demonstrates what I am seeing. The blue box is the breaker, the green boxes are good outlets, and the red boxes are dead outlets. Number one, all lights and fans have power in the bedroom and bathroom. Number two, I'm surprised the outlet in the lower right hand side of the room is not the number one outlet in the circuit. Number one would be, from what I can tell, the outlet in the bathroom which then travels clock wise around the room. Both of the green outlets are reading 123 volts going in and out. The third outlet (first red) is reading 6-8 volts, I get the same rating on the last two outlets. I have pulled every outlet and checked all the wires. No obvious signs of cracks or burn marks. The bedroom is on a GFCI circuit and is still good when tested. I have checked all GFCI outlets in the house just to be sure, all is well. Am I dealing with a broken wire somewhere between my last green and first red outlet?
I would say yes but, are you reading voltage between hot and neutral, or just hot to ground? Maybe you lost a neutral somewhere. When you say they're GFI, are they slaved off of one of the outlets or a GFI breaker? Could be the outlet is bad and the load side of the GFI is not getting juice anymore. You got conduit or Romex? Are you sure they're all on the same circuit?
A couple things to check. Either the last plug working or the first plug not working is usually the culprit. If the receptacles are pig-tailed, check under the wire nuts for a loose wire and or neutral. If they are being fed through the plug, check the four screws on the receptacles AND the bus bar between the screws. Make sure you are checking in the correct direction of the circuit as well. You can do this by throwing a breaker to isolate. It is more than likely a very easy fix. Also... double check that GFCI. I have seen them working but kill the circuits following them.
I would say this is the least likely scenario which is a good thing! Also, don't figure the house is wired the way you think it should be wired. People do crazy things building houses. I'm not convinced you're actually getting a good reading where you are measuring 6-8 volts. There could be zero voltage there but your meter may show a few volts which can/will throw you off. Sounds crazy but did you check your breakers? If a breaker is tripped, it won't be all the way to the "off" position and sometimes is easily missed by someone that may not know. If it's tripped, it will have a little play when you try to push it to the "on" position. Go all the way to off and then back to On. Is there a GFCI in the garage (maybe on the same wall where your "red" outlets are?) Is it tripped - some GFCI's can nuisance trip a lot and need to be replaced. I'd probably start with checking the breakers to rule out the simplest possibility. Then pull each outlet out and check connections. Some ppl "stab" the wires into the back of the outlet but the best way is to wrap the wire around the screws. If you come across any wirenuts, check the wires inside. The wires should be twisted together and not just placed together and wirenutted. I apologize if you know all of this already. Some people just don't. When you figure things out and get them working again, I'd check your labeling at the panel box to help you out in the future. I pretty much redid my labeling because it was very vague before.
Really seems like a bad breaker to me, they actually do go bad sometimes. Those plugs look like they are in a series, that one green one may be off the bathroom. Hard to know what the electrician did that wired the house, sometimes they don't wire it in a sensible fashion. *make sure you breaker is off* First I would check connections at the breaker box. Turn off the main breaker and you are safe to fiddle around in there as long as you don't mess with the wires connected to the main breaker. For that breaker for that circuit check connections, and check all your ground and neutral connections. If that don't fix it, if you can, I would try finding the lead line from the breaker box and tracing it from plug to plug, doing your best to see if it is broke somewhere along the line, chewed up or something. Usually it will be the closest to the breaker box. Then check the connections at each of the plugs in order. Check the wire nuts here for good tightness and the connections on the side. If that looks good, I would replace the breaker for that circuit. Just make sure you turn off the main breaker first. Used to wire houses before the Army, now Im a commo guy.
Thanks guys. I will check a few more things. Feb, my first outlet in line is the only one on this circuit with a GFI. I have tested it a few times and the outlet following in order is still working. The rest are normal outlets. Finch, I have had the breaker on and off several times while checking the plugs. All of the outlets do have the wires wrapped vs stabbed. Could it be possible for a breaker to be bad and still allow some facets of the circuit to work?
I am going to pull the first bad outlet and put both black and white wires in a wire nut tonight to bypass the outlet. I want to make sure it's not just a bad outlet.
Have you checked to see if that breaker box has 240v Could have lost one leg and the 8v is just a back feed thru your 240 appliances .. Sounds like a half service to me Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well, no luck on having a bad outlet. Bypassed the first bad outlet ad checked the next two, nothing. I don't think it could be a broken wire somewhere, wouldn't that trip the breaker? I do feel, though, that since I am still pulling 6-7 volts on my dead outlets they are still live. It almost seems like I have something that is a high resistance inline somewhere. Ready to burn this house to the ground!
Do you still get 6-7 volts when you have the breaker off that you think feeds this? Sometimes, you can get small readings that aren't necessarily accurate. It could just be an induced voltage if the de-energized wire is running along side one that is energized. Some digi meters are sensitive like that. Don't let that throw you off. Are you familiar with continuity testing? Your meter should have that setting and will beep if you touch both probes onto the same conductor. You can test by touching both probes together on this setting. You need to do this with the power off. Here's a crude diagram I made. For example, pull out your outlet in outlet #1 and unhook the wires from the outlet. Go to outlet #2 and do the same. Basically, we want to make sure that the wire is not broken in between. The way you would normally check continuity is to touch one probe to one end of the wire and the other probe to the other end of the wire. If it beeps, you have continuity and the wire is good. In residential applications, the leads/probes on your meter aren't long enough to do this from outlet to outlet so you have to get creative. You could use an extension cord to effectively lengthen the conductor so you can use your meter to test OR you could twist the hot & neutral wires together in outet 2 and check for continuity at outlet #1 by touching one probe to black and one to white. If you get a beep then both the black and white are good between both outlets. If you don't get a beep, two things. One wire (hot or neutral wire) has an open or thats not the correct wire going between the outlets. Hope this makes sense. Only do this if you're comfortable. Gotta make sure the power is off on the wires you'll be working on. I wish you were closer, I love this stuff. Any of the outlets you pulled out to check only have one wire going to it? That's the end of the run and the last outlet on the circuit.
what else does this circuit run ? Is it strictly the outlets you mentioned or does it run lights ? just thinking perhaps you have an open elsewhere If it runs from a working outlet then to a switch then on to other outlets a wire could be off at the switch.
Can you post up what is on what circuit? Is it just those 3 receptacles? Are they all on the same circuit? Or is anything else ran off the same breaker? I think if you can post up a quasi wiring diagram to go with your first post depicting what is on what circuit, that may help everyone give you a hand in this. Checking the voltage at the wire instead of the receptacle slots is a really good idea like Finch said. Maybe a bad receptacle?
Had this happen to me once... boy did I feel stupid when I realized it was the switch. (FTR I had just bought the home)
Another update: found out my GFI in the bathroom is NOT on this circuit. The four outlets in the bedroom, the light in the bedroom, and the bathroom light an fan are run on the circuit. I feel very confident I am dealing with an open neutral. Where that is at I do not know. I checked the last outlet that is not working (se corner) and it has wires running out of it. I have no idea where too?? Nothing else is bad in the house. I thought this outlet was last in line for the circuit. Can a light switch still work properly downstream of an open neutral? I wish I knew what I was doing, lol. The headache is awful and I am lost at this point.
