House circuit failure

550Doug

Member
Location
Southern Ontario
Just had one circuit in the house that has no power. The ceiling lights flickered and went out and now every socket outlet is dead too. The breaker switch did NOT trip!!
That's all there is on the circuit, two ceiling lights and maybe 6 wall outlets.
What sort of 'event' would cause this. Maybe a squirrel eating a line? Other ideas??
 
That would be an "open" somewhere in the line. An electrician's nightmare. Very hard to find. Could be a loose wirenut, bad connection on a switch or plug. Very hard to give you advice, however I would start at the outlets, closest one from the panel and work both ways looking for loose wire.

What kind if wire? Romex, BX? Conduit? How old is the house?
wish you luck, joe
 
You have an open, it can be in the hot or neutral, clear back to connection in main box under the breaker or on buss bar.

I would put a voltmeter on the breaker and start there, do not change ANYTHING until you diagnose it.
 
14-2 copper wire put in about 1985. This is a basement room where I have some computers. I'll check for loose connections throughout the basement.
On a similar note, my electrician was doing a new sub-panel install for me and when she was doing her final tests one circuit in the house failed. This circuit was untouched by anything during the install as she routed 7 circuits from the basement panel to the new sub-panel in the garage for a generator hookup. During her close checking of the basement panel she found that over 50% of the white wires in the panel were loose. She said she's heard of wires working themselves loose over many years but had never seen it. After tightening them all, that failed circuit was working again.
So with this in mind I did check that all connections in the panels were tight, and they were.
 
Good to know, but this would have been helpful in the original story. I deal with customer issues all day, and about half the time there is a "by the way" hiding somewhere.
 
Should be an open somewhere as everyone has suggested. If the outlets were wired using the quick connect system of stripping the wire and pushing it into the back that has a habit of failing. The screws on the side of the outlet sure seem better. Start at breaker and work down the line.
 
Power should never be daisy chained through devices, so it would be in the panel, wire nuts or wiring.
 
First off, probe each of your circuit breakers to be sure they all have voltage to neutral on their outputs. Breakers can and do fail.

Assuming you have voltage at the breaker, go to the outlet or light switch you think is closest to the breaker panel. Pull the receptacle or switch out of the box and see if you have voltage at the actual wires. If you can't find any voltage there, there's probably another box somewhere you don't know about. (Don't forget it might be on an outside wall or some other unlikely location.)

The typical cause of this sort of failure is using the plug-in backwire feature of most receptacles, rather than taking the time to properly connect the receptacle using the side terminals. Sooner or later, the backwired connections fail and knock out all the downstream receptacles. If you find this to be the case, I would go and replace every receptacle in the house, as once one backwired receptacle fails the rest will soon follow.

Don't forget the problem can be on either hot (black) or cold (white) conductors. And when reading voltage, make sure you have a load on the circuit, such as a turned-on light.
 
IF I understand the OP and follow-up, I would start by checking that circuit in the box, especially the white wire. If the electrician tightened the screws, perhaps that circiut white wire was squeezed out, or broke off. She may have cycled the breakers while doing this and the breaker may have failed to reclose, so look for power at the black wire.
 
David
Are you saying that the wires should be connected with a wire nut in the box and then a jumper wire run to the plug.
While I agree that is the best way I have never seen any job fail inspection because the wires were hooked to the 4 screws on the plug.
In fact the only time I have ever seen plugs not daisy chained threw the 4 screws is when you are using the plug for 2 circuits such as 1/2 the plug switched and 1/2 the plug hot all the time.
 
While it's not a code issue that would cause a failed inspection, it is good practice to have wire nut connections with a jumper to the receptacle. If you back stab the wiring into the device and the device fails you lose power to everything downstream in the circuit. With a wire nut/jumper connection if the device fails you only lose one device, unless there is a direct short and the breaker trips. In my area you typically see the back stabbed connections in residential applications and wire nut/jumper in commercial work.
 
Sometimes breakers go bad. You might install a new breaker and see if that fixes the problem before going to the trouble of tracking down a short.
 
In my house, the original owner wired directly to the plugs and switches instead of using wire nuts and jumpers. If yours is like this, you probably have a broken wire at the first plug or switch in the circuit. Fixed a few of these in my house.
 
In a multi-wire branch circuit it is a code violation if not tailed off to the receptacles. If you like I will state the article.
 
You just need to trouble shoot it like you would a tractor light ,,find out what you have and don't have..And every one should tighten up their main contact lugs every couple years they work loose, then get a bad connection, build up heat and can cause a fire...We never think about these kind of things till trouble happens...
 
(quoted from post at 12:08:47 09/03/15) You just need to trouble shoot it like you would a tractor light ,,find out what you have and don't have..And every one should tighten up their main contact lugs every couple years they work loose, then get a bad connection, build up heat and can cause a fire...We never think about these kind of things till trouble happens...
Very good advice, especially since I'd already experienced a loosening of lugs in the panel.
I checked the whole circuit and discovered one of the sockets was wired using the back stab method, and the one white wire in the back had worked itself loose and was just left dangling. this obviously was dangerous!! So I've replaced that socket and wired it up using the side mounted screws.
Needless to say I'll be checking and mapping all the other circuits now!

Thanks for all your valuable comments.
 

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