Electric problem

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Russianwolf

Russianwolf

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Joined
Jul 13, 2007
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5,690
Location
Martinsburg, WV, USA.
Planning on calling an electrician later but......


Day before yesterday Wife says something is wrong with the lights in the bathroom. I hit the switch and the lights flicker for a second then go off. I figured a bad switch, so I go grab a fresh one from the shop and pull the switch it looks fine, but I'll replace just in case. I go to remove the wires and must have touched something and got a spark (yeah I know, I don't like turning off breakers). Replace the switch and nothing. Go check the breakers. Nothing. Grab my voltage meter and check all the wires in the box, nothing. No the switch is out, outlet at the sink is out, outlet at the sink up stairs is out. I've checked the GFI outlets in the garage and kitchen, they are fine. All other outlets and lights in the house are working. I can't for the life of me figure this one out.

Any ideas where I should look before making that expensive call?
 
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First off, don't do anything you are not comfortable doing. Find out what is all on that circuit then TURN THE BREAKER OFF. Odds are the issue will be in the last devise that works. Power is getting to it, not through it. If you are not sure don't mess with it.
 
chance are the Power is all coming from that box/light and branching out to the plugs and lighting. If you only have I romex bundle in the switch box chances are one is Hot and the other is the switch Leg. I would check w/ the volt meter againts each wire to Ground with the Volt Meter. If no power on any of the wires I would drop the light and see if a Wire Nut could have come lose in there causing the Main Run to come disconnected from the Rest. If in that box there are a lot of wires I get tape and wrap each piece w/ a Flag so while I am trouble shooting I can lable each wire as I trace it out using a Ohm Meter. If power is gone then somewhere the Main line going back to the Breaker has come lose from the group.
 
if ANY of the gfi's in the run from the box to the bathroom are out, everything past it will be out. we have this happen with customers from time to time, walk the circuit, trip and re-set ALL gfi's and give it a shot.
 
From the description you gave, it sounds like the GFIC Circuit also goes to the light switch (a "no no" here). When you sparked the wire, you popped the test button on the nearest GFIC recepticle.

Find that recepticle with the "button" and reset it. If there is no recepticle with a button, go to the breaker box. Find the circuit with the little white button. Push the white button, then cycle the breaker.

THEN, you can turn the breaker off and replace the defective light switch.
 
Mike, Chris and Jon have great advice. Since you found the spark, my bet is on a tripped GFI somewhere upstream from the switch. Often you will find one hidden out of the way such as under the sink. GFIs also do fail so check the power coming into each one to locate the point of failure. Where you find power in but not out is the place. Also as stated above, if you are uncomfortable with any of this, please by all means, call a competent professional. The house you save may be your own.

By the way, here is wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Charles
 
I'll double check those.

The house originally only had one GFI outlet. in the garage, closest to the breaker box. The bathrooms, kitchen and outdoor outlets were all in a series after that one. I've since added new GFIs to the kitchen outlets.

I'll test all the outlets again with my meter. I'm plugging the two probes into the outlet and getting a reading everywhere but the bathrooms right now.

The box with the switch has four or five romex coming in/out. Two switches, one for the fan and one for the lights.

It should be required by law to provide wiring diagrams with the sell of home. :mad: It would make this sooooooo much easier.
 
What you find when you are chasing down electrical issues is there are no easy ways to do it and you spend most of that time scratching your head wondering how the place was wired and in what world it made sense. :mad:
 
Not sure if you found your problem or not but here is another thing that sometimes happens with breakers. If the breaker tripped and you just push it back to the on position it may not have reset. If you know for sure what breaker protects that circuit turn it off and push it as far to the off position that it will go and then turn it on. It should go little past the resting off position. It's worth a shot.
 
I'm thinking maybe a loose connection somewhere that's causing a partial open. It maybe be time for the wiggle test.
 
Odd

I had a similar problem recently and it tuned out to be a switch that would move far enough to open the circuit but not far enough to look "off" the switch was partially thrown.

Where I would look is at the wiring to the outlet. and make sure both the feed in and the feed out are tight (try plugging something in and wiggling the plug with the plug on). Sometimes both in and out will be connected to the outlet make sure both are tight. Sometimes they will be connected to a pigtail and there will be only one set of wires on the outlet make sure the connections in the wire nuts are tight.

The reason they don't provide wiring diagrams for houses is that two houses built at the same time with the same electric circuts will not necessarily have the same physical wiring even if wired by the same electrician. The domestic bluprints I had when I built my cabin didn't even show any of the routing for wiring...just where the lights and outlets were located and what circuit they were on. I decided what order to wire them in....usually (but not always) the route that used the least wire.
 
Russianwolf said:
It should be required by law to provide wiring diagrams with the sell of home. :mad: It would make this sooooooo much easier.
Click to expand...


The house I'm working at now (just painting luckily) is 140 years old and was a mish-mash of knob & tube, romex, aluminum, 3 way switches wired incorrectly and the ever popular grounding lug on the copper gas line.
(I got to fix all the electrical stuff over the summer)
 
Been there - done that

StephenM said:
Russianwolf said:
It should be required by law to provide wiring diagrams with the sell of home. :mad: It would make this sooooooo much easier.
Click to expand...


The house I'm working at now (just painting luckily) is 140 years old and was a mish-mash of knob & tube, romex, aluminum, 3 way switches wired incorrectly and the ever popular grounding lug on the copper gas line.
(I got to fix all the electrical stuff over the summer)
Click to expand...
The first two houses I remember living in were all knob and tube with 30 amp service.

Years ago they used to commonly wire three ways differently than today. The house I lived in for 32 years was an old farm house and the wiring was something else. all of the threeways were wired in a way that worked but would never meet today's code. I never was able to change all of them so some were still wired wrong when I sold the house.
 
might not help much

Russianwolf said:
I'll double check those.

The house originally only had one GFI outlet. in the garage, closest to the breaker box. The bathrooms, kitchen and outdoor outlets were all in a series after that one. I've since added new GFIs to the kitchen outlets.

I'll test all the outlets again with my meter. I'm plugging the two probes into the outlet and getting a reading everywhere but the bathrooms right now.

The box with the switch has four or five romex coming in/out. Two switches, one for the fan and one for the lights.

It should be required by law to provide wiring diagrams with the sell of home. :mad: It would make this sooooooo much easier.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how much that would help. I am first owner of the house I live in. I've been here 7 years and there are about 6 circuits in the house that were not there when I moved in and the basement lighting circuit has a whole lot of lighting that wasn't included in the original package.

Also, if I had not been able to get a look at the wiring before they closed the wall some of the changes I made you would have never guessed. They had an outlet in a cabinet over the range to plug in an over the range microwave but they also had a range hood - instead of plugging that in they had it hard wired so when I installed the microwave I had to cut back the wire to the range hood (I couldn't pull it because it was stapled in).
 
Sounds like a loose nut between the switch and the floor.:wink::smile:

Seriously, it sounds like you may have a wire grounding out somewhere and when you move something around you are breaking the ground that shouldn't be. Hard one to find but a dangerous one to not find. Check any exposed wiring in the attic first for signs of rodent damage.
 
Last edited:
Okay.......another thing to check....maybe two.

Are your switches and receptacles back stabbed? wire just stuck in the back instead of under the side screws. Sometimes, these work loose and back out and make or break the circuit.
Outside GFCI getting wet by the sprinkler or dew/rain...cover open or missing and then whenit dries out it works? Should have tripped but who knows?
Am electrican can put a signal on the wire and trace with an electronic beeper and track the power to the interuption. $$$

Hope this helps
 
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
 
Curiosity

How old is the house - in very old houses or houses with a lot of rewiring done by owners you sometimes find things like junction boxes where you might not expect them. When wiring the Septic pump/alarm system on a cabin I built I ended up putting a junction box in the crawl space under the house - perfectly legal and with code because it was exposed but if you didn't know it was there and something went wrong inside it, you might have had a problem finding the failure.

Russianwolf said:
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
Click to expand...
 
30 years give or take, no evidence of any rewiring anywhere. IF anything, the previous owners only changed out fixtures.

Now me? I've removed walls, and whatnot. But then again, I've been in the house for a third of its life. (longer than any previous resident)

Smitty37 said:
How old is the house - in very old houses or houses with a lot of rewiring done by owners you sometimes find things like junction boxes where you might not expect them. When wiring the Septic pump/alarm system on a cabin I built I ended up putting a junction box in the crawl space under the house - perfectly legal and with code because it was exposed but if you didn't know it was there and something went wrong inside it, you might have had a problem finding the failure.

Russianwolf said:
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Hmmmmm

Russianwolf said:
30 years give or take, no evidence of any rewiring anywhere. IF anything, the previous owners only changed out fixtures.

Now me? I've removed walls, and whatnot. But then again, I've been in the house for a third of its life. (longer than any previous resident)

Smitty37 said:
How old is the house - in very old houses or houses with a lot of rewiring done by owners you sometimes find things like junction boxes where you might not expect them. When wiring the Septic pump/alarm system on a cabin I built I ended up putting a junction box in the crawl space under the house - perfectly legal and with code because it was exposed but if you didn't know it was there and something went wrong inside it, you might have had a problem finding the failure.

Russianwolf said:
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Do you happen to have light and fan sharing a fixture?
 
Smitty37 said:
Russianwolf said:
30 years give or take, no evidence of any rewiring anywhere. IF anything, the previous owners only changed out fixtures.

Now me? I've removed walls, and whatnot. But then again, I've been in the house for a third of its life. (longer than any previous resident)

Smitty37 said:
How old is the house - in very old houses or houses with a lot of rewiring done by owners you sometimes find things like junction boxes where you might not expect them. When wiring the Septic pump/alarm system on a cabin I built I ended up putting a junction box in the crawl space under the house - perfectly legal and with code because it was exposed but if you didn't know it was there and something went wrong inside it, you might have had a problem finding the failure.

Russianwolf said:
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Do you happen to have light and fan sharing a fixture?
Click to expand...

The fans have built in lights. Two switches in each bathroom, one for the fan/light, and the other for the other lights in the room (one in the upstairs and two in the downstairs)
 
Russianwolf said:
Smitty37 said:
Russianwolf said:
30 years give or take, no evidence of any rewiring anywhere. IF anything, the previous owners only changed out fixtures.

Now me? I've removed walls, and whatnot. But then again, I've been in the house for a third of its life. (longer than any previous resident)

Smitty37 said:
How old is the house - in very old houses or houses with a lot of rewiring done by owners you sometimes find things like junction boxes where you might not expect them. When wiring the Septic pump/alarm system on a cabin I built I ended up putting a junction box in the crawl space under the house - perfectly legal and with code because it was exposed but if you didn't know it was there and something went wrong inside it, you might have had a problem finding the failure.

Russianwolf said:
First thing I did was trip and reset all three GFI outlets (garage and two kitchen), and check the breaker box.

This has got to be a loose connection or bad switch somewhere. While switching out the downstairs bathroom outlet, I accidentally had the hot and ground touch while removing the wires, and it definitely has power. Reset the breaker. But the white doesn't have continuity, so its somewhere on that side of the line.

Everything else in the house works. The fan in the upstairs bathroom works. but the sink light and outlet there are dead, and all three (two lights and one outlet) downstairs are dead.

There is one light that I swapped out some two years ago that I will be checking after I replace the switch, and yeah they used the stab portions of the switches which I hate and will be redoing the old fashioned way.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Do you happen to have light and fan sharing a fixture?
Click to expand...

The fans have built in lights. Two switches in each bathroom, one for the fan/light, and the other for the other lights in the room (one in the upstairs and two in the downstairs)
Click to expand...
In some wiring schemes, the power could be going first to the fan/light and going from there to the fan/light's switch and also to the other light. I would look at the wiring around the working fan/light very carefully.... There are a number of ways of hooking up lights some the source goes to the switch first and some it goes to the lights first.
 
Just another little FYI. I know this is not your current problem but be careful packing the GFCI's in the box and also in any box fed downline from that: Do not let the ground come in contact with the neutral...it will trip the GFCI.

Also, do not have another GFCI downline from the first in the ciucuit. You can have a GFCI in multiple locations on the same circuit as long as none of them are feeding downline. Point of use only.
 
update.

got home and the lights were working again.

Had dinner, fed the dogs and went to the bathroom. Out again.

Replaced all four switches. No change. Checked the one new light fixture, everything is tight.

Looks like a trip to the attic tomorrow night.

If I can't find anything there, I'm calling in reinforcements (a pro).
 
update two.....

went to bed last night (forgot to reset the alarm so overslept this morning and just called in). Got up and everything is working again.......


dang gremlins. Wish they'd make up their mind.

attic trip postponed.
 
Could it be a moisture problem?

I had to disconnect an outlet in my kitchen that was getting wet from an ice dam problem, and tripping the GFCI. Took me and my brother awhile to track it down. I can probably reconnect it now that I've put a heater wire on the roof to prevent the ice dam.
 
Temperature swings could be causing a loose connection to open/close with expansion and contraction of the metal in the wire or even in the breaker. Do you notice that it works when it has been warm and doesn't when it is cold or vice versa?
 
Wow

Are both bathrooms on the same breaker -- are the lights and outlets on the same breaker?

If they are all on the same breaker then the odds are that the working fan/light is the thing nearest the breaker on the circuit. And the trouble will be between there and the next thing on that circuit --- probably the light in the same bathroom. You could have a problem with a wire at the switchbox and if you have metal boxes, it could be a nick in a wire shorting out or a nick in a wire breaking and making contact. I could also be a tiny exposed area near a wire nut making contact with the bare wire ground. It almost seems to be related to you working the switch and moving something a tiny bit. Use your glasses (if you wear them) and a flashlight and look at things in that switchbox very carefully.

If...and it is possible...that the working fan/light is on a different circuit then none of the above will matter. Actually I don't think the code allows lights and outlets on the same circuit anymore but 30 years ago it probably did.
 
update...

I'm told the downstairs bathroom is out again, but the upstairs is fine.


attic time


This can't be a short, as that would trip the breaker, gotta be a loose connection somewhere.
 
Oh my frickin' god........

I hate houses that were built before building codes.

Okay her is what I have and can see at the moment.

Upstairs:
have a pair of switches in a box, one for the fan and the other for the light. One romex in the bottom, two out the top. These are curretly working.

One receptacle near the sink. two romex in the bottom. Not currently working.

_______________________________________________Main feed lines run THROUGH the ceiling/floor between the two floors of the house. No exposed junction boxes.


Downstairs:
have a pair of switches in a box, One for the fan, and one for two lights. three romex in the top, one in the bottom. none currently working.

One receptacle near the sink. two romex in the top. Not currently working.


All of these are on the same circuit. All switches and receptacles are brand new, wire correctly with pig tails, not stabbed.

Nothing is making sense, unless there is a hidden junction box somewhere with one in and four out. But then where do the second leads from the receptacles go? I was thinking that the power was going first to the receptacles, then to the light boxes, but I have a dead receptacle and working lights.......

Attic was a dead end. Two wires coming out of from the box, and directly to the fan and to the wall where the light is. Basement is a dead end, nothing going into the wall of the downstairs bathroom. If I can trace the wires, I could figure it out, but how to trace them?

And to top it off, I blew the fuse in my meter, so now I'm plugging things I know work in to check for the basics.
 
Take a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath

Hmmm...

OK...You have to determine which wire/wires to the upstairs box is the feed. It can be either one of the wires coming in the top or the one coming in the bottom.....Since the only thing that has worked all the time is the fan/Light upstairs you can probably assume that it is connected or its switch is connected directly to the circuit breaker and that the breaker, the fixture, the wiring and the switch are all good.

You need to start from there. Look at the wiring in the switch box see how it connects to the working switch and how it connects to the non-working switch ---- if a wire comes in and the black goes to the switch that works and another black is on the other side of the switch with the two whites connected one of those romex is going to be the feed. Find out which is hot with the switch turned off,

If you have a black wire going to the switch that works and a white wire with black tape on the other side of the switch then the main feed is going to the fan/light first. I'd guess that is not the case.

In either case you need to see how the other switch is connected. You probably have some wires connected together with wire nuts. and how they are connected will determine what is going on. I think you said that was the box where you first noticed the problem. If it is, I'm guessing you have a problem in that box...and It will be where input and output wires are connected together. There are a ton of ways they could have done that. I'm guessing that under one of the wire nuts in there, or it could be wrapped in tape, you have a broken wire. And just to make it interesting it might be broken inside the insulation.

I would be super sure that everything in the box where you first saw the problem and drew the spark is good before I did anymore looking elsewhere.
 
Found it.

loose connection in the back porch outlet. replaced the outlet and one of the wire slid out as I pulled the outlet out to work on it. rewired everything with pigtails and no flickers and everything is working.

Done deal.

Turn out, the downstairs bathroom is all on the one circuit with the gfi. Basement, Kitchen, Garage, outdoors and bathroom outlets and the downstairs lights for some reason. The upstairs bathroom lights are on a separate circuit. Thus all the confusion.

Fixed, and I've earned a cold beer.
 
Russianwolf said:
Found it.

loose connection in the back porch outlet. replaced the outlet and one of the wire slid out as I pulled the outlet out to work on it. rewired everything with pigtails and no flickers and everything is working.

Done deal.

Turn out, the downstairs bathroom is all on the one circuit with the gfi. Basement, Kitchen, Garage, outdoors and bathroom outlets and the downstairs lights for some reason. The upstairs bathroom lights are on a separate circuit. Thus all the confusion.

Fixed, and I've earned a cold beer.
Click to expand...
Have 2 --- good job.
 
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Ah Yes, the problem always seems to be in the last place you look! You never know how things were done and sometimes have to check boxes that should not be on that circuit to find it. Well done!
 
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