Time to call an Electrician?

16 years ago

PROBLEM: 4 outlets (3 inside, all bathrooms on different levels of the house; 1 outside, patio) stopped working.

BACKROUND: I have searched the entire house (built in 1988, owned since Sept), and can only find 1 GFCI outlet (top floor bathroom)

POSSIBLE CAUSE: Water got into the outlet on the patio or the top floor bathroom

SOULUTIONS I'VE TRIED:

1. resetting GFCI in top floor bathroom

2. turning power off/on at breaker (main and individual)

3. resetting the other 3 non-working outlets with a portable GFCI device

I wanted to ask for advice from the experts on this website...should I try something else, or call an electrician?

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Comments (7)

beacher003
16 years ago
Seems that all the devices are on the same circuit, probably fed from the one GFI. If the GFI is the newer series it will no longer function if the GFI fails.
If that's the case, try changing the GFI.
joed
16 years ago
This certainly sounds like a tripped GFCI. YOu just need to find it. There is no such thing as a portable GFCI resetter. You must go to the GFCI device to reset it.
Most of the time the GFCI in these type of cases is found in the garage, usually behind a pile of boxes, the the winter or summer sports equipment, the fridge or something piled in a corner. Also check around the outside of the house for any other receptacles that could contain the GFCI.
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thx for the replies folks! Another UPDATE here. Used the 3-prong outlet tester I got at the hardware store and sure enough all outlets in the house (except 2) show open ground. The 2 "Normal" outlets are one that my 110v electric oven and washer are plugged into and another outlet on the other side of the same wall where the water heater, furnace and water softener are. Since the water pipes for the house come in right between those 2 outlets I assume someone decided to ground just those 2 outlets straight down to one of the water pipes. At LEAST they did that to make the bigger appliances safer! So there doesn't seem to be a ground wire running throughout the house from the breaker box in the garage. Just those 2 outlets have been individually grounded to the pipes. Sound about right? Anyway someone on another forum has stated that I should either install GFCI outlets wherever I intend to use 3-pronged equipment like the computers. My question is this: As I said before I'm very new to this stuff. Would a GFCI outlet have helped in the incident with my computer? Meaning if my power supply shortet to it's shell, energizing my metal computer case (as it apparently did), would a GFCI outlet have tripped and broken the connection saving me from the shock? Someone also suggested maybe grounding a few individual circuits in the areas I was concerned about. Computers, refrigerator etc. The back bedroom is far from the water pipes so would it be possible to attach ground wires to the proper places on a few of the wall receptacles then drill a hole through the wall to the backyard and attach them to a grounding rod or something?
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I still have the old hardware, I'll check it out. It's just a simple 2 receptacle piece, but apparently the switch controlling the light on the other side of the wall is connected to this outlet since when i checked out what worked in the current setup you see in the pictures, the light switch no longer works. I didn't notice if the tabs were still attached or not. And yeah i thought the box was pretty crowded. Thanks for all the tips and advice, i don't want to be over confident in myself working on this.
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nabisco7
Original Author
16 years ago
I've checked the house from top to bottom, every inch of the garage, and outside...there are no other outlets that have test/reset buttons. I am sure of this fact.

Is it possible that a GFCI outlet could have a regular plate on it? (previous owner could have switched it with one without reset/test buttons)
stinkytiger
16 years ago
Hi,

Maybe a GFCI breaker? Did you check your breaker box?

Best, Mike.
joed
16 years ago
Then it could be a loose connection issue. If the entire circuit is dead it could be a problem in the panel. If only part of the circuit is dead then the problem is in a junction box somewhere. It could be in any box on the circuit, receptacle, light, switch etc. It could be in a working or non working box.
beacher003
16 years ago
Do you have power out of the one gfi in the bathroom? As I noted earlier, you may be feeding the other recepticles from the gfi in the bath. Those would be ground fault protected with a feed through gfi.
Ron Natalie
16 years ago
A portable gfi resetter is really likely a portable GFI tripper (which isn't even reliable at that absent a hard ground).

After you reset the GFCI you can find, does something plugged in to that receptacle work? If not, then you either actually have a fault somewhere, or the GFCI is toast.

If the receptacle on the GFCI itself functions, and the others don't, then you've either got another GFCI you haven't found OR the wiring is screwed up.

A good location for checking for screwed up wiring in the latter case, is to (turn the power off at the breaker first) pull out the GFCI from it's box. Make sure the wires leading to the LOAD terminals are properly connected.

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Time to call an Electrician?

Comments (7)

beacher003

joed

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nabisco7
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stinkytiger

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Time to call an Electrician?

Comments (7)

beacher003

joed

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nabisco7Original Author

stinkytiger

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