A hot spot away from the load is exactly what happened in my house. The load was in the garage, but the hot spot was in the master bathroom, where the wire actually melted apart, with the breaker never tripping. Another time the cat was staring into an outlet, which seemed strange. Investigation determined that the outlet was arcing enough to make light and noise, right at the cat’s head height.
Turns out the house is wired with a mix of copper and aluminum. Remediating all of the aluminum with CO/ALR outlets and switches, or installing pig-tails, was job number one in baby-proofing the house.
OOP believes the building is 30 years old, so there’s a practically zero chance of any aluminum wiring or Zinsco / FPE breakers.
My money’s on a bad connection at an outlet - probably a burned spot with a back-stab.
To answer **Kedikat’s **question if there can be hot spots away from the load - absolutely yes. About a year after I moved into my house that was built in 1961 and meddled with by untold flippers, screw-it-up-yourselfers, and maybe a licensed electrician or two, I had a situation where I turned on the lamp on my nightstand. Whole circuit went dead. Thought the bulb shorted internally and tripped the breaker, but no. Took a while of probing around to find the last outlet on the circuit that had power was in another room. Pulled the outlet out of the box and found a broken-off wire right at the backstab contact. The 60-watt lightbulb was the literal “last straw” to burn out the bad connection.
Ah, maintenance. From apartments to plants, we get alot of work from those guys. Both before and after they “fix” electrical issues. It’s always a dice roll but recepticals aren’t really complicated and there are some really good maintenance personnel out there.
my info on the zinscos and stab loks was more a psa to anyone, regardless experiencing problems or not. (I realize my offhand mention will get exactly zero of those panels discovered by homeowners. it may though plant a seed so when a person gets told they have one of these panels needing updated, it could help that they’ve heard of why somewhere).
on the determining which outlet is to blame, I’ve got a dead man’s cord that I’ll jumper power to the problem circuit from another outlet elsewhere in the house (being served by the same leg, but different breaker, with all other breakers in the house being off). supplying power to the backside of a fault can help rule out a lot and will often walk you right to the fault.
never a good idea to let the smoke out of the wire.
About Zinsco. At a service call, the electrical problem was a Zinsco breaker. The home owner wanted me to replace it.
I told him, that they were out of production, and no used ones to be had. Because the houses that had Zinsco have burned down due to an electrical fault.
if none of the busbars are burnt and the panel isn’t overcrowded, they actually make zinsco breaker replacements that are the same externally but different internally (which was the original problem). I’ve updated existing panels with just these new breakers. they are expensivs compared to other breakers, but cheap compared to replacing some panels (especially those that would require a relocate as well). the brand is called connecticut electric