Two days ago the electricy in my bathroom light and outlet cut out. They are the kind of switch and outlet that are one unit. The ceiling light in the adjacent bedroom is also non-functional, but the outlets there are okay.
Our apartment complex is fairly old and other units have had problems with their wiring. Not so weird.
Here’s the weird part: It’s done this twice before. Each time, the electricity resumed working without any intervention.
Flipping the circut breakers has no effect. We’ve even tried the circuts of the apartments next door. The only thing that might be tying in is the water damage in the ceiling. The bathtub upstairs was slowly leaking for some time. We’ve got a bunch of mold and the paint was bubbling for a couple days. Manager says it’s fixed now. Is is possible that the water dripped into the lightswitch (about 3 feet away and 4 feet down from the leak) and also screwed with the wiring for the ceiling light in the other room? By what possible mechanism could it have fixed itself before?
I was going to recomend checking the Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI), but the water leak is more likely. Putting a GFI on a bathroom circuit is code in many places so that is worth checking. One thing I have seen, is people thinking that if one is good several GFIs on one circuit is better. Not. Make sure there is only one GFI in the circuit. They will interfere with one another-giving you problems like what you are seeing. But step one is to remove the wallplate of the switch and look around with a flashlight. If you see any water damage, pull the breaker and take out the switch and if there is any corrosion-replace it. Better yet, if you see anything at all in the switch, have the landlord call an electrician.
Remember that a GFCI receptacle can be used to protect up to six downstream receptacles, and other circuits, such as a lighting circuit. Depending on how the unit is wired, a GFCI in the kitchen could be protecting the bathroom and lights.
A GFCI receptacle won’t reset itself, but one located in another room could be reset by the OP or another occupant who isn’t aware of the electrical relationship between the two.
I don’t know if a GFI circuit applies in this case. Sounds like an old unit.
(My house is 30 years old-------has no GFI circuits. Just as well. GFI circuits can be an annoying and very erratic pain in the butt when they don’t work right)
Sounds to me like a floating neutral. —Power company problem —(Which sometimes fixes itself after things dry out.)
Call the power company for a free check of your service. If they find nothing wrong------call an electrician.
Depending on the Authority Having Jurisdiction, older units may have had portions of the electrical system upgraded to include GFCIs. Even if the AHJ isn’t mandating them, I strongly advise property managers and landlords to spend the extra money for their installation whenever a bath, kitchen, or outdoor circuit needs repair.
You say the apartment complex is fairly old. How old?
Back in the 50s aluminum was used for house wiring. Bad Idea.
Aluminum and copper junctions can corrode. Many house fires were started because of it.
One of the houses we rented years ago still had the aluminum wiring. The fix isn’t necessarily replacement of the wire its just making sure the outlets and switches are made for al/cu. Most are now a days but with cheap switches etc coming from overseas it wouldn’t hurt to check.
Even if the problem goes away I’d still consider calling an electrician unless you are comfortable working on wiring.
Thanks for the info, everyone. There is no way I’m going to try to fix this thing myself. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around how this problem could even be happening.
Here’s some more info if it changes anything: The complex is about 30 years old. Old enough (or cheap enough) that many of the water pipes around have been breaking and the wiring is doubtful. We’ve got a phone jack in one room that refuses to work despite installing a new coupler. All of the plugs on our appliances have to have the tines angled inward because the outlets fit so loosely.
Any ideas on how long a competent electriction might need to work on something like this? I’m scared that they’ll have to take my bathroom apart.
Actually it was more in the mid 70’s that aluminum was used very extensively for household wiring. (seems to me that wiring in the 50’s was exclusively copper).
Serious copper shortage in the early to mid 70’s caused this.
(not sure why exactly-----was told that it had something to do with the recent War in Vietnam)
One guy I worked with used to save all the extra copper that would be ordinarily thrown away from AC work------and he made an excellent extra income doing that and reselling the old copper.
Anyway------there was a serious problem with housing built in the mid 70’s using aluminum wiring. --------Not that aluminum is not a good conductor. Just that eventually you have to attach that aluminum to copper -------and therein the problem.
Done properly, with the right connections and the right “goop”— aluminum can be attached to copper with no fire hazard.
Unfortunately, many “electricians” in the mid 70’s took short cuts and sometimes just flat out didn’t know what they were doing.
And lots of fires in houses of that era gave aluminum wiring a very bad reputation.
And the cost of copper came down eventually, copper became economical to use in house wiring again —and the whole problem became moot.
(except for those houses built in the mid 70’s with aluminum wiring)
A neighbor’s daughter was having a problem with her apartment receptacles.
No power in upstairs bathroom when drying hair etc. in AM before work.
After MUCH checking found problem was result of ONE GFR in downstairs kitchen was also feeding upstairs bathroom and tripping on overload.
She had landlord install another GFI upstairs for ease of reset.
A loose wire or one that arcing has occurred in and vaporized out the wire. I bought a place and upgraded the alluminum wiring to copper before having the electricity turned on. They put a 25 amp fuse in a 20 amp circuit with and air conditioner plug into the outlet. The outlet had only facing left. The wire had lost all insulation for 6 inches, and the socket had mostly burned away. They had similar problems in 2 other outlet boxes.
Have the landlord get an electrician in their to fix the problem. I suggest you turn off the circuit at the breaker until an electrician can fix the problem.
Aluminum wire connected to copper metal will erode away the alluminum wire without the proper connectors to prevent oxidation. It is also easier to kink or pinch, and heats up readly when that occurs.
Unfortunately, this isn’t really an option. The circut breakers are arranged such that all the ceiling lights in the house are on one, and all the outlets (except maybe the stove) are on another. If I want to cut power going to the bathroom, I’ll have to live with no electricity at all. And then what will I do without SDMB?
Okay, so the electrician came and traced the problem to an outlet in the other bedroom. Not the bedroom where the ceiling light was out. What’s more, the outlet itself was still working. He replaced the whole outlet and heypresto everything works again. How does that happen?
Outlets can be wired in “daisy chains”, which often simplifies running wiring for multiple outlets and fixtures on a given circuit, or allows a single wall switch to control several outlets or fixtures simultaneously. Probably the set of terminals the downstream circuit paths were wired to had corroded or burned out, while the input terminals from the breaker box were ok.