Home Electric Issues

Lower 2 rooms of my house are having electrical issues. I am losing power/lights to the two intermittently. Sometimes its both rooms, sometime only one room. I cannot predict it or recreate it on demand.
- One breaker covers the two rooms but the breaker has only tripped once when my wife turned on her portable heater. Manually tripping it and resetting will not fix the power loss.
- Both rooms burn out bulbs frequently (3-4 bulbs a year) when turning on the lights
- Usually the power loss happens in both rooms but recently it only happened in one entire room and 2 of 5 outlets in the other room. I still cant get it to turn on.
- I have unplugged everything then reset the breaker but no luck.
I'm kind of outta ideas as I am not electrically smart, any ideas will be gladly accepted.

How old / new is your house ? You most likely have a loose connection at the first point of tap after the bereaker where it splits to feed both rooms. And it is possible the electrician that wired your house took short cuts by using the wire stab ins instead of pig tailing and using the side screws at each devise.
The wire could be loose at the breaker, but both rooms would be out.

House is 10 yrs old, we have been in it for 5 (second owners).
How hard is it to find these wiring boxes where they split? I could fix the loose connection if I could find it.
I assume no reason to replace the breaker, it wobbles a bit in the breaker box but the 2 breakers above it do too.

Need to check connections at switches, outlets and any pigtails in the switch/outlet boxes.

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Originally Posted by buffalobo

Need to check connections at switches, outlets and any pigtails in the switch/outlet boxes.

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Dont forget the boxes above the light fixtures.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

Dont forget the boxes above the light fixtures.

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^this, all equip/fixtures on the circuit should be checked.

OK, so turn off the main breaker and unscrew the fixtures and outlets and check them individually. Then make sure the wires are tight and replace fixture then see if that makes a difference. I can do that.

You don't need to shut off the main breaker, uless you just want the whole house dead.
Shut off the breaker for that circuit, check with a meter at the breaker where the wire goes in if no voltage, tighten the screw.
go to the rooms and check each outlet with a meter before working on them. Carefully remove switches and check with a meter before working on them, and the same goes for the light fixtures.
You will most likely find one or more places where the loose connection(s) have arced and caused burns or heat discoloration.

Cool, I will give it a shot. I hope this fixes it, Thanks all.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

You don't need to shut off the main breaker, uless you just want the whole house dead.
Shut off the breaker for that circuit, check with a meter at the breaker where the wire goes in if no voltage, tighten the screw.
go to the rooms and check each outlet with a meter before working on them. Carefully remove switches and check with a meter before working on them, and the same goes for the light fixtures.
You will most likely find one or more places where the loose connection(s) have arced and caused burns or heat discoloration.

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^ Will get the job done and educate op. [emoji106]

I had a similar problem for a while. Problem ended up being the previous homeowner had replaced an outlet, and used those damn "poke the wire into the hole in the back of the outlet" to connect it. One of the sides wasn't making good contact, and was causing the issue. I could actually feel heat touching that outlet.

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Originally Posted by DenverGP

I had a similar problem for a while. Problem ended up being the previous homeowner had replaced an outlet, and used those damn "poke the wire into the hole in the back of the outlet" to connect it. One of the sides wasn't making good contact, and was causing the issue. I could actually feel heat touching that outlet.

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See post #2
As odd as he is, Bob knows his sparky stuff well. I would trust him an instant (in that capacity anyway[panic])
OP, be sure to check your ground and neutral lugs/bars and any bonding devices as well. A funky neutral/ground can cause all sorts of maladies.

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Originally Posted by BPTactical

See post #2
As odd as he is, Bob knows his sparky stuff well. I would trust him an instant (in that capacity anyway[panic])
OP, be sure to check your ground and neutral lugs/bars and any bonding devices as well. A funky neutral/ground can cause all sorts of maladies.

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Thanks, I think.
This true too, but in this case, you will want to turn off the main breaker and be extra careful after removing the "Dead Face" ( it is called this for good reason ) and start poking around in the breaker can with a screw driver.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

This true too, but in this case, you will want to turn off the main breaker and be extra careful after removing the "Dead Face" ( it is called this for good reason ) and start poking around in the breaker can with a screw driver.

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Chicken[Coffee]

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

Thanks, I think.
This true too, but in this case, you will want to turn off the main breaker and be extra careful after removing the "Dead Face" ( it is called this for good reason ) and start poking around in the breaker can with a screw driver.

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Meh. I play with the dead front off all the time.

I got NFPA 70E trained about a year ago. LOTS of electrocution and arc blast burn pictures.

They catered lunch. BBQ.

Sick bastards.


Vossman - just don't take ANY shortcuts with safety. Check everything twice before doing any work. We like having you around here.

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Originally Posted by theGinsue

Vossman - just don't take ANY shortcuts with safety. Check everything twice before doing any work. We like having you around here.

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When I do electrical stuff, I make my wife watch me with a phone in her hand in case I kill myself.

We'll, all my confidence just went to shit. Thanks guys, I'll be careful and let you know the outcome. I feel better knowing this could be an easy fix vs having to call a dude and having him tear into the walls etc.

Be sure to check each outlet for voltage before digging in. I've had 1 or 2 surprises that some smartass put on a different circuit from the rest of the room.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

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Originally Posted by Irving

When I do electrical stuff, I make my wife watch me with a phone in her hand in case I kill myself.

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Why would she need the phone then ? Order pizza ? [Sarcasm2]

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Originally Posted by StagLefty

Why would she need the phone then ? Order pizza ? [Sarcasm2]

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Nah, she is filming it for the "Hey Honey, I told you I can fix this" show.......




Vossman- if you go the kill the main breaker and pull the face route you may as well check all of your terminal connections that are downstream of your disconnect.

I like playing with just 110-220. Still work on the buddy system and a believer in the one hand method working on a live circuit. Ya have not lived until ya play with 100-200KV coupled with RF. It has a way of reaching out and touching you. Still have a mark.

I will agree that if your going to pull the main to go in and tighten up stuff. I had many that were not secure after 30 years. I also since I was replacing a couple of breakers swapped a bunch out. they were cheap. I also got rid of the aluminum wiring that I had (220 only thank god) Good luck in your quest.[Flower]

So vossman, are you still among the living ? What did you find ? Hopefully you took pictures to post up.

110 only tingles.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

So vossman, are you still among the living ? What did you find ? Hopefully you took pictures to post up.

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I am off shift on Tue so i will do it then. I will take pics.

UPDATE: The lights and outlets starting working 3 days ago we were unable to troubleshoot it while it was not working. I was able to get a buddy who is good with electrical help me with the breaker box. All was good there. We took each outlet and light switch off and found that 2 were broken where the wire went in.
Top one is the light switch, you can see the broken piece and the arc burn on the plastic and metal. The bottom piece is the outlet that is cracked and where the wire was inserted was broken off.
So not sure if its actually fixed but we'll see. Thanks for the help guys.

http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/...ps35adb17f.jpg

It also looks like the plug needs a haircut....

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Originally Posted by Wulf202

110 only tingles.

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If you want a surprise have a good hold of a bare telephone wire as someone calls into the house.. :O I work on LV systems and the old phone ringing gets me worse than any 110 ever has.

sent from a soup can and some string..