I just bought a new hedge trimmer and plugged it into an outlet in my garage with what seems like a decent size outdoor extension cord. I turned it on and it shut off after about a second. Nothing else will work when plugged into the garage outlets and the lights won’t turn on either. I checked the breaker box in the basement and nothing is tripped. I’ve looked all over and I can’t find a GFCI. The house was built in 1928. The light in the basement bathroom isn’t working now either, but other lights that I know work off of the same breaker switch are. Tried a new bulb, so that’s not it. My MIL stays in the basement on Mondays and Tuesdays and she would have told me if the bathroom light is out. Any ideas what steps I should take next?
Are you sure that you don’t have a sub-panel that feeds from the original breaker box?
Don’t even know what a sub-panel is, but if it’s anything like another breaker box, I don’t recall ever seeing one.
Good luck on finding another tripped breaker or blown fuse, because there could be a bad one anywhere in an obscure location after the main breaker.
Another thing is a wire could have come lose in an outlet, so looking at the last live outlet is a good place to start looking for a lose wire. Make sure you turn off the breaker and that the power is off before you work on the outlets.
But not inside the walls or underground or anything like that, right? I’m running out of places to look.
I doubt it. It happened right when I was turning the hedge clippers on and there was no tension at all on the extension cord.
I’m guessing you don’t have a proper meter either or the training in using one.
This is a good time to call an electrician.
Yeah probably that time
My next step would to be take the cover off the main panel and test each breaker with a volt meter.
Do the trimmers have a 3-prong plug? If so, it’s possible that the 3-prong outlet is not wired correctly. (Something like this happened to us.) In any case, I’d say it’s electrician time.
Given the age of your house your garage wiring is most likely tied to at least one outlet in your house. This is because garages weren’t considered rooms that used a lot of electricity back then and houses are wired in parallel. One socket is wired to another one geographically to save wiring.
My garage (detached) was wired to a kitchen light that was wired to a wall socket and then a light in the basement. it was then run to the second story for a cable run to the garage. If the wire nut in my kitchen light fixture came loose I would lose the garage electrical. I’ve since installed an underground cable with 100 amp service so I can run an air compressor and a 220 volt plug but you get the jist of it.
What I would do is check the outlets in your house that are in close proximity with your garage. I would then go to your electrical panel and switch the appropriate breaker on and off to see of you have a bad breaker. I’ve seen them trip and not full pop over so they look like they’re still on.
My comment for the good luck reflects the hodgepodge way house of that age were often wired. My dad was a carpenter and I often went with him. I’ve seen some horrendous wiring and covered up electrical boxes. Say the wire runs short in the attic and they have an old fuse box thrown into the rafter under insulation and then new wire run the additional 5 feet to reach the lamp in the ceiling.:smack:
Homes built during WWII are a real mess of scrounged lumber.
The basement bathroom is towards the back of the house and wiring from there goes through the foundation. I’m guessing this goes to feed the garage, so I’m also guessing this is related somehow. But the breaker that connects to that bathroom light also connects to the lights in the boiler room, and all the lights and outlets there work fine.
When was the bathroom remodeled? That’s the room that should have the GFCI if one exists. So I’d look for a fuse or a GFCI breaker in the bathroom.
One of the things to be aware of with a house of this age is you may have aluminum wiring. Do you happen to know if that’s the case? Aluminum joints will creep apart over time and corrode within the joint. Eventually you plug in a load and the surge in current heats the joint and you get a big voltage drop (as well as heat) across the connection. That’s not to say that’s the case here but it’s something you should be aware of.
I would check the outlets in the bathroom for a GFCI unit.
Al wiring in 1928?? I doubt the origional wiring was Al.
But a house built in 1928 with breakers has been rewired. So it is anyone guess how it was wired.
If you do not know how to test or trace out circuits your safest bet is call a pro.
Possible problems.
Bad breaker.
open hot in one of the junctions boxes caused by
1. broken wire
2. bad splice
3. if hot is daisy chained through an outlet bad connection or outlet.
4. loose wire nut.
or ti could be an open neutral in one of the junction boxes caused by all the same.
There may be a GFIC some where kitchen or bathroom.
If you do not know how to test for any of the above, again I say do yourself a favor and call a pro.
Aluminum wiring in house built in the 1920s? I never heard of aluminum being used in residential wiring until the 60s and 70s,
And I agree the bathroom is a good place to look for a GFCI or loose connection. But if you’re not comfortable with wiring, I’d call that electrician.
The original wiring could have been knob and tube for all I would know. She has a breaker panel so the wiring was updated at some point. With older homes like that things have been done and redone so many times there are a great many potential problems. If it was rewired in an era of Al wiring the homeowner needs to be aware of it; you can’t just reterminate the connections and be on your way. That’s all I meant. I specifically mentioned it may not be the case with her home, it was meant as an FYI in case she comes across it. I have a whole collection of melted and charred Al wiring devices from over the years and I’m an industrial electrician, I only work on these older homes when a residential electrician asks me to give them a hand with the troubleshooting.
This is really a simple puzzle. You follow the wires back to the last functioning location. If the garage is truly isolated in this respect then the first connection in the grid is the place to test. If it’s not the garage then it is a connection in the house or a bad circuit breaker. Testing every outlet in the house would be part of the elimination process. From there you would have to check breakers for power. If you can’t do the work then an electrician needs to be brought it.
Have you ever had a broken item stored away somewhere, e.g., a radio, electric drill, etc. and when you come upon it you plug it in to see if it will somehow have been miraculously fixed? Well, today I plan on going in the garage to get the hedge clippers and extension cord and run the cord out of the bedroom window and trim the bushes. I open the garage door and test for my miracle: I flick the light switch and “Shazam”, the light goes on! Electric problem mysteriously fixed! Any idea how that could have happened?
My first idea is you have a loose electrical connection. Have it checked before it causes a fire.