Home Electrical Help

[KSanford33]

My house is about 120 years old, but the electrical system is only a few years old. Saturday morning when it the wind chill was still in the-20’s, I plugged in a space heater. It caused the outlet to lose power, so I figured I popped a breaker. I went into the basement and the breakers are fine. Now I’ve randomly got 2-3 other outlets not working as well as 3-4 light switches. I’ve tried resetting all of the breakers (including the main house breaker) and it didn’t help. 
 So what did I do, and -more importantly- how do I fix it? Thanks everyone. 

[islandbass]

See if any of your outlets have GFIs (GFCIs). Many homes have them and they’ll trip before the breakers at the box. 

This probably the culprit. If you don’t know what they are or look like, check this quick video out. They will cut off power to any outlet on its circuit so there might be a little trial and error in find which gfci is associated with the outlet in your house that currently doesn’t have power. 
 

 

 

[Deleted account]

It could also be you have a sub panel somewhere, or fried a line, or a breaker is tripped, but doesn't appear to be, some return almost to the same spot and are hard to diagnose visually. On the bright side, you didn't burn the house down.

[Jigfishn10]

Disconnect the wires from the outlet and with the breaker on, test for line voltage. If you have line voltage then replace the outlet.

[TnRiver46]

41 minutes ago, Jigfishn10 said:

Disconnect the wires from the outlet and with the breaker on, test for line voltage. If you have line voltage then replace the outlet.

That was my first guess, lightning has fried a few outlets at my house. My power is grounded to the cold water line, I need a grounding rod 

 

an electrician told me exactly how to install one and I remember each step……… but I don’t want to fry myself haha

[Jigfishn10]

23 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

That was my first guess, lightning has fried a few outlets at my house. My power is grounded to the cold water line, I need a grounding rod 

 

an electrician told me exactly how to install one and I remember each step……… but I don’t want to fry myself haha

The real concern is that, if there's no line voltage. Then it could be a faulty breaker or worse, a fried line like Deleted account mentions. 

 

Those space heaters use a lot of amperage and the space heater along with whatever else was in use at the time could have exceeded the circuit rating. The CB should have tripped but if it's faulty, now you have to start thinking wire.

[Deleted account]

1 hour ago, Jigfishn10 said:

The real concern is that there's no line voltage. Then it could be a faulty breaker or worse, a fried line like Deleted account mentions. 

 

Those space heaters use a lot of amperage and the space heater along with whatever else was in use at the time could have exceeded the circuit rating. The CB should have tripped but if it's faulty, now you have to start thinking wire.

All good points. Electrical tracing in an old house's wiring can be tricky. If it's just a bad breaker or outlet, that probably would be the easier fix. The fact that a several outlets and fixtures are out would indicate that there is something else amiss, or that there is some creative wiring somewhere. I would cut the main power, check to make sure it's off, and then test conductivity from breaker to outlet or outlet to breaker. Hopefully it's something easy. And get a professional, if you aren't comfortable working with electricity. 

 

ps: What I have seen before in older houses with central AC or heat pumps, is breakers at or near the disconnect (on the outside of the house) that feed other parts of the house where the home owners didn't know it, not likely, but maybe.

[gim]

6 hours ago, islandbass said:

See if any of your outlets have GFIs (GFCIs). Many homes have them and they’ll trip before the breakers at the box. 

This occurred to me back in August.  There is a GFI switch in my upstairs bathroom that was toggled, and it turned the circuit off in my garage, which controls my garage door openers.  7am arrives and my wife can't open the garage door to get out and go to work.  No big deal, I just release the opener using the manual pull rope, and raise it myself so she can back out.  Took me several hours to figure out the source of the problem with this circuit, because no one would think that a GFI bathroom switch would affect a circuit in the garage.

 

As it turns out, my 4 year old boy tripped it the night before.  d**n kids, I tell ya.

[KSanford33]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

This occurred to me back in August.  There is a GFI switch in my upstairs bathroom that was toggled, and it turned the circuit off in my garage, which controls my garage door openers.  7am arrives and my wife can't open the garage door to get out and go to work.  No big deal, I just release the opener using the manual pull rope, and raise it myself so she can back out.  Took me several hours to figure out the source of the problem with this circuit, because no one would think that a GFI bathroom switch would affect a circuit in the garage.

 

As it turns out, my 4 year old boy tripped it the night before.  d**n kids, I tell ya.

I wish mine were so simple. The majority of the outlets in my house are so old they don't have the third prong for the ground, let along a GFCI.

[gim]

4 minutes ago, KSanford33 said:

I wish mine were so simple. The majority of the outlets in my house are so old they don't have the third prong for the ground, let along a GFCI.

Unfortunately, I'm no help with your electrical problem, as my knowledge is very limited.

 

What I would say is to avoid using that space heater again.  It probably burns up a ton of electricity anyways, and provides minimal heat.

[KSanford33]

1 minute ago, gimruis said:

Unfortunately, I'm no help with your electrical problem, as my knowledge is very limited.

 

What I would say is to avoid using that space heater again.  It probably burns up a ton of electricity anyways, and provides minimal heat.

It's the old doctor advice: You tell your doctor that it hurts when you do a specific thing and the doctor tells you not to do the thing then.

 

 I have an electrician coming tomorrow and he said the exact same thing regarding the space heater. They draw so much current and don't produce much heat to begin with.

[MN Fisher]

Doing the electrical work in the house (I had an Apprentice License years ago), I'd call some one instead of trying to track it down yourself unless you have training/experience.

 

Oh - you did that.

 

Ya - electric space heaters are a huge waste of power...lots of current used for very little output. If you need heat in a small space, get a propane heater rated for indoor use...ya, they're out there.

 

[Jigfishn10]

1 hour ago, Deleted account said:

ps: What I have seen before in older houses with central AC or heat pumps, is breakers at or near the disconnect (on the outside of the house) that feed other parts of the house where the home owners didn't know it, not likely, but maybe.

It's amazing what you see, isn't it?

Good stuff Deleted account

I'm done here

[casts_by_fly]

47 minutes ago, gimruis said:

This occurred to me back in August.  There is a GFI switch in my upstairs bathroom that was toggled, and it turned the circuit off in my garage, which controls my garage door openers.  7am arrives and my wife can't open the garage door to get out and go to work.  No big deal, I just release the opener using the manual pull rope, and raise it myself so she can back out.  Took me several hours to figure out the source of the problem with this circuit, because no one would think that a GFI bathroom switch would affect a circuit in the garage.

 

As it turns out, my 4 year old boy tripped it the night before.  d**n kids, I tell ya.

 

Any idea why the bathroom GFCI controls the garage?  We have two GFCI in the basement which control the outside plugs and the garage outlet.  Its a stupid setup.  Instead of running GFCI plugs outside or near the outside plugs, they put them as close to the breaker as possible.  So if you trip one outside, you have to come inside to the basement to reset it.  I'm guessing something similar for your bathroom?

[gim]

4 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

Any idea why the bathroom GFCI controls the garage?  We have two GFCI in the basement which control the outside plugs and the garage outlet.  Its a stupid setup.  Instead of running GFCI plugs outside or near the outside plugs, they put them as close to the breaker as possible.  So if you trip one outside, you have to come inside to the basement to reset it.  I'm guessing something similar for your bathroom?

No idea.  Its definitely stupid.  In my last house, that was brand new in 2012, the GFI switch for the garage was on an outlet IN THE GARAGE, not in an upstairs bathroom.  This house I moved into last May is 14 years older.

[casts_by_fly]

2 minutes ago, gimruis said:

No idea.  Its definitely stupid.  In my last house, that was brand new in 2012, the GFI switch for the garage was on an outlet IN THE GARAGE, not in an upstairs bathroom.  This house I moved into last May is 14 years older.

 

Which makes perfect sense.

 

I think in my case they cheaped out on the plugs.  Instead of installing a half dozen GFCI across the outdoor and garage plugs, they put two in the basement (where they are needed anyway) and then ran lines to the other locations that need GFCI protection.  So they would save about $100 on plug costs or so which isn't a big thing itself.  However, they make a lot of houses.  There are 20 on this street, so that's $2k.  They have thousands going in each year.  A thousand houses is $100k savings.  We are redoing our outside right now so every plug outside is going to be a GFCI.

[Will Ketchum]

It's puzzling if the electrical system is only a few years old but you have two prong outlets. A lot of Rube Goldbergs could have had their hands in the house in 120 years is my guess.

[TnRiver46]

3 hours ago, KSanford33 said:

I wish mine were so simple. The majority of the outlets in my house are so old they don't have the third prong for the ground, let along a GFCI.

Several of mine are that way, they make adapters haha. I think I bought a ten pack 

[MN Fisher]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Several of mine are that way, they make adapters haha. I think I bought a ten pack 

Realize that those adapters just let you use a 3-prong plug - they don't actually ground the circuit like it should be.

 

One of the things I did when I bought this place was replace all the 2-conductor wiring with 3-conductor (hot, neutral, ground)

[Deleted account]

35 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Realize that those adapters just let you use a 3-prong plug - they don't actually ground the circuit like it should be.

Oh man, I guess I'll be toasting my bagel AFTER my bath, good catch...  

[Woody B]

Get the electrician to fix whatever is wrong, as well as install all grounded outlets.  

[slonezp]

And pray you didn't lose a neutral. The potential to let the smoke out of all your electrical appliances and potentially kill you is huge. 

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, MN Fisher said:

Realize that those adapters just let you use a 3-prong plug - they don't actually ground the circuit like it should be.

 

One of the things I did when I bought this place was replace all the 2-conductor wiring with 3-conductor (hot, neutral, ground)

 

1 hour ago, Deleted account said:

Oh man, I guess I'll be toasting my bagel AFTER my bath, good catch...  

no showers in thunderstorms 

[Log Catcher]

When you install a GFCI outlet what is on the wiring after the the GFCI is automatically protected. Sounds like whoever wired @gimruis house  ran wiring from the bathroom to feed power to the garage. I don't know about other places but it is code here if you replace a two prong outlet to a three prong you are supposed use a GFCI outlet.