electrical question

Suddenly, one room in my house has no power. I have checked all the breakers, and none of them are tripped. Any ideas?

Is it on a GFCI circuit? You may need to find an outlet that has been tripped and hit the reset button.

Nope, no gfci in the house, I don't think they did that in the '80s. And I haven't gotten around to replacing outlets yet. I'm stumped on this one.

Could very well be aluminum wiring & an open circuit. Gonna have to trace this one from the breaker box - the open might be at the box or at the first outlet in the room.

It seems like I have copper wire throughout, or at least its copper at all the fixtures and outlets. Bedrooms 2 and 3 share a breaker and bedroom
2 has power everywhere except the outlet on the wall that it shares with bedroom 3. I guess to trace it further, I will have to go to the attic. I was really hoping to avoid digging through all that insulation.

Find the leader -- usually there "should" be no more than twelve receptacles to a 20A circuit -

Your lighting should be on 15A breakers

Hopefully your breaker box was marked --

You can use a circuit tester to follow wiring that is powered , most likely you lost a neutral leg as this is commonly wire nutted -

I would suspect that you have a loose connection in an outlet box that is feeding the bedroom. I would check each outlet in the area with a non contact voltage tester. The first dead one I found I would open it up and examine it. This is a common problem with "back stabbed" receptacles. I usually is the white (neutral) that is loose. Most often the wires can be re landed on the terminal screws and the problem will clear up. If the wires can easily be pulled form the back of the receptacle the fault usually lies there.

now thats some solid advice from a profesional

Old Town, I have a wire i want to check inside a wall,what is a no contact tester?
Do you point it in the area of the wire & look for voltage?
This leads to my heater.

Fluke makes a voltage tester that just has to be close to the current. Not sure how well it will work through drywall though. Works great for checking Christmas lights.

Well, I didn't have a non contact tester, so I pulled all five of the non working outlets and the light switch. All connections looked good. The only thing I haven't checked is the connections at the ceiling fan, and the stuff in the attic. I may have to call in a professional on this one.

First off your ceiling fan shouldn't be on your wall outlet circuit, some older homes did not have ceiling lights and relied on switched outlets (as in the wall switch)-- you can go to Lowes , Home Depot and purchase a non contact wire tester, which will determine where power STOPS - fluke or greenlee are fine, around $20 and usually it has to be within 1/2" of hot wire to indicate power - handy dandy gadget to have around - you need to find where your home run to the breaker for that room is and work from first powered outlet on till you find the problem -- as said its probably a loss of neutral.

You could also have a bad breaker or a wire may have come loose in the breaker box. I would check all three wires in the breaker box and change out the breaker, They are cheap, probably $5 or less. Easy check before you start digging through insulation.

But did you actually try to tighten the connections. They can look good but may still be just a little loose. Had a similar thing happen to me. All looked OK but one of them was just a little loose. Tightened one only a quarter turn and all was fixed.

yeah, all the outlets are connected at the rear as opposed to being screwed on the posts. i ended up replacing all five of the non working ones. still no power. i know it's not the breaker, as two rooms share the breaker and one has power except to one outlet.

here is a quick sketch of what i'm looking at:

May have dropped a leg of power. Any 220V issues?

Squirel or rat chew partially through a wire in the attic?

The top yellow outlet is probably the culprit...assuming both rooms are on same breaker. Check this out very well. The feed leaving it probably goes to the center wall. Sometimes all appears well, but the electrician may have put too much torque on a wire nut and nearly cut the wire in 1/2. Over time, the connection will fail, due to heating and cooling of the wire. Of course it could just be a bad connection in the back of the outlet.

If not, look at any outlets on the other side of the walls where your "working" ( yellow) outlets are located.

Take a look at the ground of the non-working outlet in the "working" room. Your open point is either there or somewhere between there and the last working outlet. Try to find in the attic where the wire makes a corner or is attached to a stud.

Nice technical drawing, BTW!

You could have a loose wire at a circuit breaker also.
Or a circuit breaker could go bad. I have seen them look like they are turned on but they don't reset.

Something else just occured to me. I hope they didnt wire it this way, but they could have "jumped rooms" from the left ceiling fan in the drawing. It isnt proper for them to do so, but possible. Only check it as a last resort. My guess is it's in the wall outlet wiring. ( assuming both rooms are on the same breaker, as you said)

Sounds like ya got uhh little SH..SHH..SHHHS..SHHH..SHHH..SHHH..SHHH....SHHHHH..SHORT in it.

My Daddy used to work on those.

Actually, it's an open...not a short.

thanks for the advice fellers. i've been to busy at my real job since my last post but i'll check on your suggestions in the morning.

I owe you a beer oldfrog. One of the commons on that outlet had somehow come out of the back. Thanks everybody for your help!!

TFF heroes at work!!!

Cheaper'n an electrician for sure......

Electrician, my arse. I lack something like 12 hours from getting a BSEE (electrical engineering) from Miss. State. Glad you got it fixed, though !

That was one of the most expensive pieces of advice you could have gotten. It cost my former employer at least $50,000.

All that time and money, just so I could help a TFFer with his bad house wiring connection. I knew I'd use that education one day. Mom would be proud !

Yep -
Good job, OF - my comment was a compliment to the collective knowledge, experience, and accumulated wisdom of the members of forums such as the TFF.
It amazes me how many _fill in the blanks_ get fixed just by posting a question on the forum.
In these economic times it's great that the members help the members..........

underrated post.

RIP Jim Varney.