I have a small ranch built in 1957. Never really had any electrical issues until today.

I work from home and have the 3rd bedroom set up as an office. Laptop, gateway, etc at my desk. I had meetings all morning long, lots of work, all was normal. I went out for lunch and mowed the front lawn real fast, came in, had lunch and the office was dark. Light out, gateway out, and laptop on battery power. Odd... all breakers were fine. Cycled them and no issues but it didn't resolve the problem.

I then realized the hall light, guest bedroom light, an outlet in the master, and an additional outlet in the guest bedroom were out. Cycled every breaker including the main. Nothing. Cycled all GCFI outlets although none are on that circuit, no change. Inbound power lugs are tight, 123.8V across inbound power and at the outbound of every breaker.

Electrician's came out and we pulled every plug and switch, all were fine and tight. We replaced 2 as I had spares but no change. I changed one more after they left for an emergency call and also no change.

I am perplexed....

Slab on grade?

Is the attic unused space? Such that it has blown in or other insulation on the ceiling?

There could be a buried box in the attic that went bad, but didn't fail in a way that shorted.

If you've got power going out of the panel at the breaker then there has to be a problem downline. That's what you pay an electrician for-to trace the problem downline until it's found.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder:
Slab on grade?

Is the attic unused space? Such that it has blown in or other insulation on the ceiling?

There could be a buried box in the attic that went bad, but didn't fail in a way that shorted.

Full basement, semi finished. Breaker box and all wiring is from the basement up into the rest of the house.

Check to see if you have a GFCI outlet that tripped.

Usually in bathrooms or kitchen.

Scratch that, I read the rest of your post.

Armored cable or early Romex?

I still think it's a buried or otherwise unnoticed junction box.

Time to "ring out" circuits, with a continuity tester that responds to a dongle, I forget what they call it, that's why I had my electrician.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder:
Armored cable or early Romex?

I still think it's a buried or otherwise unnoticed junction box.

Time to "ring out" circuits, with a continuity tester that responds to a dongle, I forget what they call it, that's why I had my electrician.

It’s called a Fox and Hound. You clip on the signal generator at one end of a wire and the probe (detection unit or “hound” picks up or “sniffs out” the signal down line. Keep sniffing until you find the break in continuity.

Betting you lost a common somewhere along the circuit. Hence.... testing the Hot side will show 120V. That is what happened to me. Common/White wire burned/arced and killed the circuit.

Andrew

Check for outdoor GFCI outlets. We have one on the porch area that turned off inside outlets when the Christmas lights got too wet.

Also check to see if your garage door opener or shed is that type of outlet.

Did your electrician use a voltage tester or tic tracer to identify if the breakers in the panel were working?

A good technique is to start there and follow the circuit from where you know you have power to where you don’t

You also need
A voltage test at the affected outlets to help identify if you are chasing a hot wire problem
Or a neutral problem

As per your description of what trouble shooting steps were done, changing outlets is not called for yet.

quote:

Originally posted by El Cid 92:
Betting you lost a common somewhere along the circuit. Hence.... testing the Hot side will show 120V. That is what happened to me. Common/White wire burned/arced and killed the circuit.

Andrew

I agree this is the likely scenario.

quote:

Betting you lost a common somewhere along the circuit. Hence.... testing the Hot side will show 120V.

Just had that happen in one of my rentals. Ceiling fan/Lights stopped working. Common wasn't making good contact in the wire nut at the fan itself.

Now would be the time to relocate to a different room to keep the office running. It sounds like it'll be a pain to locate the problem and possibly worse to repair it - you've checked all the obvious, accessible places, which leaves that non-code-compliant junction box hidden behind the sheetrock. You can't predict when the electrician can return or when he can find and fix the issue, so you might just as well act now in pessimism rather than later in despair.

If you have a Jackery or equivalent, that would work, too. It would be easier than moving everything to a different room.

Electricians didn't make it back today, they ran into an unexpected issue on the previous job. They'll be here at 1000 tomorrow. I'll post an update.

It's not practical to move my office, I'd have to re-arrange half the house. Besides, I've also lost the office ceiling light, guest room ceiling light, main hall light several outlets in each room, and the only other outlet in the basement other than washer/dryer so it gets fixed or I have about 1/3 of a house with no power.

Electricians have a tone generator for tracing circuits. Ask if they are using such to diagnose!

It sounds like with that much out , the problem is going to be closer to the breaker . Do you know which circuit breaker is supposed to feed that circuit ? You said that ya'll pulled every device and checked the connections . Did you also do a voltage check at each one and see where you lose it ? After reading your post again about all of the different rooms that are affected it's going to be a bitch to follow that circuit . I wish I was there . I love those kinds of challenges .

You just have to find the right wire.

He ended up refeeding the circuit. This is apparently a common problem in this area, he said he sees several a month. A lot of these, mine included, where homeowner remodeled in the 70's and there are often hidden boxes as some mentioned.

He noted that whoever installed the breaker box has the house over breakered. The entire box is 20A breakers when several should be 15A. This was bought as an estate property and had a short riser and fuse box with evidence of water intrusion. The estate property agent was known for being really shady and had his brother in-law replace the box. No idea what his credentials were but they're known to be a team. It passed city inspection. Fortunately I don't have a lot of load. LED lights everywhere, clocks, LED TV, etc. The only heavy power draws are furnace, stove, and kitchen and those are separate circuits.

I'm going to have a few other larger electrical companies come in and look at this before I proceed with him again.

Holy $&%**$(*$ !!!!

Yesterday morning I opened the hall linen closet for an item and realized there was an outlet in the closet. I always thought it was stupid so other than a light sensor LED night light for a little illumination I didn't use it.

I pulled it out that morning and thought it was wired odd with both leads to the same screw. No power on either side so I left it for the electrician. I remember him saying "That's dangerous, do you use this?" I told him no. Power was tapped off the hall light switch on the other side of the wall. He said this has to go so he removed it totally and the wiring. I was cleaning up and just looked at it closer..... it's wired with old 4 wire telephone wire using the red/black and yellow/ green cut off at both ends!!!!!

HOLY (*#@$(!@#*$!+_)@(*#!!!!!

Years ago one of my coworkers bought a home without gettig it inspected which I told her to do. Anyway the previous owner added an addition that he built himself. She moves in and used the addition as her office. Stuff she plugged in would work for a minute and shut off. She was going to check if plugged in good and felt the outlet was very hot. Turns out that all the outlets were wired using dollar store extension cords. Electrician she called found tons of other mistakes and recommended a full house rewire including a new fuse box. She followed his advice and bitched about the cost for months afterward. Told her she should of got that place inspected first.