Hey all. I’m about ready to call an electrician after the new year…I wanted to lay out my details and see if there’s anything left for me to check or anything I’m not thinking of–and I was hoping you might put eyes over it to see if there’s something simple I’m not considering.
- There was an arcing event at an outlet in the garage.
- That event has tripped or otherwise broken the circuit said outlet is connected to.
- That event DID NOT trip the BREAKER
- The breaker is 100% on and the broken circuit has partial power, ruling out the breaker being the problem (power is confirmed to the circuit).
- The circuit apparently goes into the kitchen–which is all “on,” then branches off into the dead portion, which includes all the exterior outlets, two in the garage, the upstairs bathroom (which has the GFCI) as well as the downstairs bathroom. I have checked each room for dead outlets.
Those are the facts I think I “know.”
What I don’t know is:
A. If the broken branch of the circuit was “tripped” by a device or “blown” with damage to a wire/outlet.
B. Why my inspection report calls the upstairs bathroom’s GFCI “redundant”–this leads me to presume my entire problem is a “tripped” circuit breaker device that is unknown to me.
WHAT makes the GFCI redundant??
C. Unknown location of all GFCI recepticals. I *thought I knew of all of them, but this event has me dubious. The locations of all known GFCIs should lend to some sensibility about predictions:
There is ONE GFCI in each of the two bathrooms upstairs, then TWO under the breaker box in the garage (one is labeled “freezer,” the other is labeled “Pool.” All GFCIs are normal functional except for the upstairs bathroom, which is on the broken circuit.
I’m presuming based on the location of all known GFCIs that there’s not one outdoor (hidden behind a bush or something) nor one in some goofball location I don’t know of–but again, the whole “redundant” note makes me curious…
WHAT I AM TRYING TO AVOID:
I don’t want to have someone out who has to waste time poking around looking for some PURPLE COCO hidden outlet–this house has outlets in the crawlspace that accesses the bath’s plumbing. There’s a bonus room with various crawl spaces into the attic(s). There are no walkboards in the main attic for inspection. Not even the home inspectors wanted to risk it up there.
If it’s a matter of finding some outlet, I’d rather just keep looking myself.
One final thought:
When the power first went out, I was able to get a reading on my ET310 to trace the dead outlet at the breaker box. I found the affected circuit and then confirmed all the dead outlets were on the same circuit using the ET310 to test each dead outlet.
I then started removed each dead outlet to check for power at the wiring itself, including all outdoor outlets.
I also have been looking for single outlet wiring verse outlets that appear to be a link in a daisy chain–which the initially arced/affected outlet in the garage has 3 sets of wires to/through it.
I did not find power at the source of any of the “dead” outlets–but I now can no longer get any reading from the Et310 at the breaker box.
My hypothesis is that I’ve loosened something to further kill the circuit so that the ET310 cannot make the trace, but I’m dumb. I’m guessing.
My plan is to go back and pull/inspect and recheck each outlet, and if that doesn’t move me any closer, I’ll try to find someone to come look at things. But, given the facts, it really seems like something probably was tripped–something working just as it’s supposed to.
If not, it’s a blown wire affecting incoming power and killing the circuit.