My neighbor had some painters at his house. Before they started, he used an outlet for his computer. After the painters left, the outlet no longer worked. I pulled out the outlet. The outlet is at the end of a run. (I do not know if that is correct terminology). There is no power to the wires, nor is there continuity. They wires are old, cloth wires). The wires leave the box in the direction of the floor (this is a second floor outlet) so it is hard to tell where the wires go to. I do not know where to start tracing back to find the problem. Any advice on how to tackle this problem?
Bob
Replies
Can we assume that you've checked the breaker/fuse?
That would be a bad assumption, IMO.
Excellence is its own reward!
All of the breakers (which are unlabeled of course) are on. I do not know which circuit breaker this outlet is on. I suppose a breaker could go bad. Is there a way to test each breaker without pulling them out of the box? The box was installed in 1977. It is an ITE Pushmatic, which means all breakers are screwed to the panel. It seems like a pain to have to pull out each one (about 24 in total).
Take a digital meter (not a wiggy) And read the outgoing current on each breaker.
Bob,
Any other outlets (lighting or receptacle) dead?
If it's only the one receptacle, start looking for trouble there. Here's how I would approach this. Now, if you don't know how to safely use a basic electrical (voltage) tester on a live circuit, you ought to call an electrician (or someone else who does). A 120 volt, 15 amp household circuit can electrocute you with power to spare; nothing personal, but if you put yourself in the circuit, 10 milliamps can stop your heart. Water flows downhill, and electricity flows from high to low potential, through you if you put yourself in its path.
Cut power to the circuit. Check that power is off.
Open up the box, pull out the recep, and look for a broken outlet or loose wire. If things look O.K., turn the power on and test the wires for voltage. Sometimes there's no power at the slots of the receptacle, but the wires are live (because the slots are gummed up with paint, or broken, or a splice or termination is bad but not obvoiusly loose). So don't assume that the circuit is dead because the outlet slots showed no voltage.
If there's no power at the wires, cap 'em off and then start checking for voltage at nearby outlets and fixtures. There's probably an open (an inadvertant break) in the circuit between the panel and the dead outlet.
If the outlets have a ground (equipment grounding conductor) that you know is properly grounded, test voltage from hot to neutral and also from hot to ground. If you get zero volts from hot to neutral and 120 volts or thereabouts from hot to ground, the neutral is open. Beware, though, if you get no voltage from hot to neutral and hot to ground--if both the neutral and ground are open, there could be voltage present on the hot wire, but without a return path, no voltage will be detected. So also use a non-contact tester to check for voltage. (See my article in this month's FH issue--"What's the Difference" about electrical testers.)
An open at a receptacle is usually the result of a wire coming loose at the spring-clamp backwire terminal. These are the "poke-in and grab" connections on cheap outlets. They lose their grip over time, as the wire is held by the edge of a strip of phosphor bronze spring stock. The heat cycling from normal current flow cause the spring to lose tension. The wire may come all the way out, or it may come loose in the hole, causing an intermittant open. My suggestion--if the outlets are the "push-in" backwire, replace them. Use outlets with "clamp-type" backwire terminals, which are moderately expensive, or if you want to buy 39 cent outlets, use the screw terminals on the side.
A less likely cause of an open is a break in the wire (if other work was done in addition to painting). That's a little (well OK, a lot) tougher to deal with.
If an entire circuit seems to be dead, I suggest that for starters you cycle every breaker--turn it off, push as if to re-set it, and turn back on. It could be a tripped CB that isn't obvious.
If you're comfortable doing the testing safely, come back and let us know what you've found. We'll go from there.
Cliff
I have tried all of that. I had already pulled the wires out of the box. I have recycled all of the breakers in the house, they all click on and off pretty solidly. Every other outlet, switch and light in the house works fine. Since this is old wiring in the house, there is no ground, just the hot and neutral. Can't tell which one is which either. Since the wires go down towards the floor, I can't tell where they go. Any advice on what to do next?
I recommend calling an electrician because you have verified that the usual stuff is not the problem.
Go with Bill H advice first and check every outlet in the rooms that were painted.
You say all the breakers have a good solid sound/click to them when you tried resetting them. Sorry, but unless your ear is trained to the sound of a tripping breaker as opposed to one that is just being turned back on, it can fool you into thinking that everything is okay. Fact is that if there's a short in that branch, the breaker will again trip instantly when you reset it.
In order to know for sure if a breaker is truly "on" (depending upon variety) you'll have to put a meter on the screw head of its output side, with the breaker in the "on" position, and check for voltage. This is the next step I'd take in finding the source of the problem. If you're able to find a breaker that is tripped although it looks "on", it should help you physically trace the wires connected to it. Again, if you don't know how to do this or are hesitant for some reason……get somebody to assist who does know.
If you find that all breakers are truly "on" then you can probably assume that there's lousy connection or that you have a faulty breaker. These would be the most likely, IME.
The wiring to this is outlet may be tied into the service box directly or is spliced in a junction box somewhere between the service box and that outlet rather than being in series with other nearby outlets. Might just be a lousy connection in there somewhere.
In order to know, you'll have to figure out how to physically trace that wire or find it via a continuity test from the wires in the box, by trial and error to those in the basement.
There's another potential here as well. Are you certain that there are no additional fuse or breaker boxes anywhere else? It may be that there are other boxes than the primary box and that the blown fuse or breaker is there. That box may be near the primary box or in a completely different location. If there are other boxes, you may be forced to run tests on those breakers as well depending upon what results you get.
If you go looking for a lousy connection in a junction box or elsewhere, it might be best if you turn off all the breakers as you don't know which one is controlling what, while you investigate the connections inside the wire nuts. You may even find old soldered connections in a junction box. Not a good thing as they can go bad while appearing okay at a glance. Been there, done that.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
It's time to toss this back into the painters lap. They caused it. Painters [and drywallers] are notorious for this kind of carp.
Anyway, outlet boxes are usually connected to one another. It would be rare for your 2nd floor outlet to run directly to the panel so it probably is fed fed the next nearest outlet box. Your panel should have a list - or better yet - a diagram of what each breaker feeds. [Turn them off one at a time and find out what goes off.] Thus, if all of them are used for something then you don't have that rare, nonsensical single [dedicated] circuit.
So then you draw another sketch of the immediated area. Put in studs and such. Where would the wires logically go? You say they go down but they could go down a couple of inches and then thru the studs in the direction of the panel to the next outlet in the room. Or they could go down thru the plates into the first floor. So what's there?
In any event, you have two wires going out so all you've gotta do if find the other two ends. Then it's time for cutting off the appropriate breaker [now that you have them labled] and taking wire nuts apart. For some reason, it is traditional not to label the line and load wires so you get more iterations of trips to the breaker and testing. Ideally you will end up with everything running -except your problem box] and one set of disconnected wires - probably nearby - which don't make any difference.
So you test these for continuity. (It would help if you had a ground here.) The delerious painters may have sunk a nail thru them or something. More likely jarred loose a wire nut.
In the next chapter we will discuss how to demolish drywall, gypsum board and sheetrock in a neat and workman-like manner.
Or if you have a source of radioactive material, some X-ray film and a lot of lead, there are non-destructuve methods.
-Peter
31a. "A" is the shortest one letter word.
"It's time to toss this back into the painters lap. They caused it."
Not knowing what was done I won't state for certain that they did not cause the problem.
But based on what little is know I would not want to accuse them of causing the problem.
But if all they had to do was remove coverplates then it they probably did not cause this.
Rather they just disturbed box with which already had defective wiring.
In fact they should be thank for revealing the danager wiring.
The basic statement in the original post was, "Before they started, he used an outlet for his computer. After the painters left, the outlet no longer worked." Ergo: the painters are guilty - well, at least, strongly suspect.
But you are right in that they usually do not do more than remove the cover plates. And that shouldn't cause a problem.
Maybe they plugged in an air compressor or something and that load blew the circuit or a weak splice - perhaps buried within the walls.
I hope the solution to this deep mystery will be soon posted.
-Peter
When in doubt, shout it out.
> You may even find old soldered connections in a junction box. Not a good thing as they can go bad while appearing okay at a glance.
Solder joints, if done right, are by far the best way to get permanent electrical contact.. They should be good for thousands of years, far longer than any insulation will last. They don't "go bad" unless they were bad in the first place. The way it was done in those days is that the connections were twisted together and left sticking out of the boxes, pointed downward. Then the electrician would walk thru the whole house with a hot pot of molten solder, and dip every one. If a joint was left in too long, it would smoke the insulation. If not long enough, the copper wouldn't get hot enough for the solder to wick up into the joint, which is the point at which it's hot enough that the solder actually forms an alloy with the copper for a few atoms deep right at the surface. A proper solder joint makes all the wires literally one piece of metal. A cold solder joint is basically about the same as a wire nut, or maybe a loose wire nut, depending how well the wires were twisted.
-- J.S.
Sorry about that, but I was already late to the jobsite and about two cups short on coffee. Allow me to correct my wordage......"are bad" rather than "go bad".
And yes, I do know how they were done. Fact is tho that I still hate to find them because I've received too many calls and found too many bad/loose ones that have endangered people's homes and lives.
Loomex is a term that not all that many folks are familiar with. When I say "cloth-covered romex" , they know what I mean. I do that kind of thing frequently when I post as it better insures that I'm understood and saves me from having to make explanations to those who might not know the terminolgy for a particular item or process.
P.S. - For what it's worth........... I don't like stab connectors either. A perfect place for a super-heated condition that no fuse or breaker will protect you from. While they may be legal, they're not at all reliable and that makes them dangerous.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
> I've received too many calls and found too many bad/loose ones ....
Yes, but consider that if you took a statistical sample only of people in doctor's offices and hospitals, you'd conclude that most of us are sick. Nobody calls the electrician when everything is working right. So, of course, you only get called to come and find the bad ones. And from the looks of the rest of this thread, only after they've tried to fix it themselves. These words from my keyboard get to your screen through thousands -- maybe even tens of thousands -- of solder joints.
-- J.S.
You did not indicate where they painted, I assume that it was interior.
If they only did a room or too start looking there for the outlet (or switch box or ceiling box) that feeds this outlet.
It is possible that they removed a cover plate and replaced it and that was enough movement for a bad connection to show up.
Also they usually feed from the adjacent room(s).
How old of a house and wires? In my 1910 house, I have encountered two types of 2nd floor ungrounded outlets. Those with wires going up were fed off either 2-wire cloth romex or knob and tube that ran in the ceiling joists. Outlets with wires going down were fed off the first floor lighting circuit knob and tube "grid". FWIW, outlets wired this way are always appear to be "end of run" even though they may be in the beginning or middle of the K&T run.
It sounds like you have done most of the peripheral diagnosis, and now it is time to test the breakers. I still say there is no substitute for a fully documented service panel, especially in a house with 3 generations of wiring. This might be a good time to document the panel in case your neighbor asks for help again, or a better time to tell your neighbor to document his/her panel or you won't help them again. And always operate inside your limits.
After fixing whatever the problem is, tell him to fix the loose screw between his ears. Never use a computer on an ungrounded outet.
Comoputers use the ground circuit to bleed off static electricity that builds up from the spinningh hard drive (among other things.) He can fry his motherboard or iother components.
"Comoputers use the ground circuit to bleed off static electricity that builds up from the spinningh hard drive (among other things.)"
Time for a refesher course back at the inspection school. Or maybe just a high school physics course.
I don't think that there is any static built up withint the spinnig disk, but I have not tried to open one up while it is running.
However, even if it did there is nothing to "bleed off". It is a self-contianed closed system. Any static charge with between the internal parts of the drive.
Is it possible that there is a wall switch somewhere that the homeowner never uses but that the painters may have switched off that unknowingly controls this outlet?
Also, I have worked on a lot of projects where the painters remove a ceiling lighting fixture, and replace it when they are finished (or install a new one). If this is the case, perhaps a wire did not get reconnected properly in a ceiling box. By the way, my 1910 house did not even have ceiling boxes when i moved in, just knob and tube sticking through the plaster, with the ceiling fixtures mounted to the lathe!
Good luck!
Well, you beat me to it. I should've just left my brain on idle last night cause you came up with the same ideas. I think a ceiling box feed problem is as likely as any other, but the switched outlet is certainly in the running, too.
I do have one additional potential scenario. I wonder if there isn't a ganged switch-box which was also used as a junction box for source wires. I've seen alot of these where the box is crammed full and the switches are left to float so that the fitting of the cover plate is easier. If the painters took this cover plate off, it may have wiggled a loose source connection and left this outlet without power.
Let me add this to your post concerning wiring of older homes.
When electricity found its way to the older homes in this area, many/most of them were wired by the same company and so the original installations display the same configuration and materials.
One source line of cloth-covered "romex" was run for the first floor and one for the second floor. Every oulet in the downstairs was fed by this common source line from junction boxes in the basement and the same held true for the source line which ran to the attic.
We rarely find old original circuit outlets around here from these installers fed by another outlet. There was usually only one original outlet per room and the installers chose to tap for power in the nearest junction box, be that in the attic or on the basement floor joists. This, of course, makes every outlet appear to be the last on a series, if one's head is thinking that way.
Since they did solder all the connections, we see many related circuit failures due to the heat generated by modern appliance loads. A painters compressor could certainly do the deed.
The updates we see on these homes frequently include additional source lines to help supply the loads by breaking the original install into several circuits. However, often enough, the original source line is left in place and relegated to serving only one outlet or perhaps one ceiling fixture and one outlet.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
> One source line of cloth-covered "romex"
This loomed wire ancestor of romex was called "loomex"
-- J.S.
There is actually an easy way to sort this out. It will of course requuire more tools. Check your local electrical or telecom supply house or better yet online for a tone generator and tracer. You connect the tone generator to the dead black wire, and with the tracer you can track where this wire runs to inside the wall, whereby you can determine which box this wire runs to. It will take you less time then it did to read this topic. Try http://www.techni-tool.com or 1-800-832-4866.
A few tips: Don't waste time and cause additional problems by digging too deep too early. The older the electrical system is the more delicate and difficult to repair they can be. In some older systems pulling the receptacle out of the box can damage connections and shatter brittle insulation in a situation where it would likely work well for many years without problems.
Even with newer wiring every time you work, manipulate, the wires you make them stiffer, more brittle and subject to breakage. At the very least pulling the receptacle out commits you to having to stuff everything back in and working screws that might not always cooperate. A single mounting screw broken off flush can take an extra 5 or 10 minutes to remove and replace.
This is likely a simple problem. Do the easy checks first. Obtain a simple radio, a screwdriver and an extension cord, any length, that will fit your receptacles. If the radio automatically switches to battery power if unplugged, some newer ones do, remove the batteries. Plug this into a known good receptacle and tune in a station playing music, talk doesn't seem to work as well as I keep throwing the radios through windows in response to Rushes blithering, and tune it in well and turn up the volume a bit.
Plug this radio into the receptacle that is not working and go around tapping the receptacles in the area. I like to spiral out from the uncooperative device ignoring walls. Don't pound the receptacles so hard the covers break but give it a good series of whacks. When you get to the box with the problem the radio should make noises or jump to life. If you don't get a response Grab the extension cord and plug the male end into a receptacle to be tested, sometimes it pays to loosen the screw holding the cover plate, and wiggle it. go to each in the area in turn. When the radio makes noise you have found the problem.
The advantage to this method is that it is minimally invasive and will reliably find the sort of faults most likely to occur. It is also very rapid and relatively safe compared to the usual yank and look routine. This technique is so fast that you can easily check every receptacle in the average house in under 15 minutes so it makes a good quick survey. If this doesn't work you can move on to more involved techniques.
"I keep throwing the radios through windows in response to Rushes blithering,"
How do you acount for the broken windows when you bill? LOL
Good idea though.
J
Gremlins.
;-)
Check for gfi outlets in garage, baths, kitchen, and outside.
I once paid an electrician $145.00 to push a reset button on a gfi for me at one of my remodel jobs boy was I happy.
also look for hidden switches.
good luck
I got $125. oo for doing almost that.
Another electrician had been there before and had not solved the problem although charging for 3 hours at th panel (???)(always look for the union label)
This was in a pogued in, illegal duplex and one circuit fed 2 units.
I switched the load to be continuous with the line, bypassing the GFCI, this took 5 minutes.
This may be too easy to be your problem, Chicago bob, but I would look at this: are the connections in the box look liike someone put the pliers on them and twisted seriously? these connections often break, inside the wire nuts, yet don't look like it on the outside.Another is the connections in the back of the outlet--these often go bad, ehn peopl use these for junctions, this an be the problem.
See where the line goes--its got to have a connection somewhere--what feeds it? Probably the first outlet closest (look both sides of the wall.) when you find where the line goes, you can test the resistance with the ohm meter--if its not continuous, it may have been broken somehow--exactly this happened once with a circuit I had installed earlier--just nothing--it was only through some extreme interrogation that I found out someone with a sawzall had been doing a little remodeling on the other side of the wall, then it had been re taped and painted. They squawked when I charged them for fixing it ( I charge double to fix other peoples mistakes, esp with an attitude) this was in the 2d richest county in the country (Marin) in a mansion.
There 's a reason why it stopped, it can only be so many things.
James
Edited 10/28/2002 12:20:09 PM ET by EXLRRP
>> This was in a pogued in, illegal duplex ...
Pogued! Cool word. The meaning is fairly clear from the context, but can you tell us anything about the derivation, history, etc? All I found with a Google search was references the Completely Pogued CD by the band The Pogues.