Electricity out in one wall

J

JohnnyM

2,500+ Posts
The electricity in one of my walls is out. it includes outlets on either side (2 different bedrooms) as well as the lights in one room. The rest of the outlets and lights in the rooms work that aren't in this wall. I've been in the process of changing outlets and switches(in other rooms, but possibly on the same circuit as these rooms), but I'm pretty sure this ONE wall isn't on a different breaker/circuit than the others in the room, so I think my wiring has been done correctly. any way to figure this out or should i call an electrician?
 
Depends...
Do you want to get shocked or burn your house down?

I think it is pretty safe to say that if you have this problem and can't figure it out in less than 10 minutes that you need an electrician.

Ed
 
Your wiring was clearly NOT done correctly from my bleary vision. When changing outlets, you didn't make all the connections. That's my prediction. Assuming you didn't trip a breaker, that's pretty much the only possibility.

Fire is an overrated peril in these cases.
 
Well Nick the reason I think my wiring wasn't the problem is that when I first did it, some of the lights in another room didn't go on. I rewired the outlet and those lights then did come on, so I figured I had fixed any problem I had with the wiring. Was that a dumb conclusion?
 
Get a meter and run it around the house. Get the readings and see if they are normal. Anything that is out of balance should be fixed ASAP.
 
I don't know, but circuits don't work for 2 reasons, I can think of (actually, only 1), the breaker is tripped or a wire in a circuit comes loose, breaking the circuit. It's going to be a wire "upstream" from the wall that went out. I'd go to the outlet that is geographically closest to the dead wall and that you replaced and check your connections. Wires sometimes do work themselves loose and using the little holes in the back of outlets instead of the screws seems to be the culprit more often than not in my limited experience.
 
Nick is probably right.

Do, however, run your fingers along the breakers to make sure that they aren't tripped. Sometimes one will blow, but won't actually toggle over to the blown position. It will, however, move when you apply light pressure.
 
I've tripped ALL the breakers and re-set them....so that shouldn't be the issue. Unless there is something else in the breaker box I should be looking at?
 
I had a similar problem a while back, but it turned out to be a wall socket with a built in breaker in my garage that was thrown. It knocked out several wall outlets in the house and a couple outside. I tried every breaker, tested sockets, etc and couldn't find it until one of the kids noticed the deep freeze was leaking water. Sure enough, the cord to the deep freeze got pinched and tripped the breaker on the socket. Thankfully, it had only been out for a few hours.
 
That would probably be a GFCI outlet. Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter. They are usually placed in areas that might have water contact like bathrooms, kitchens and outdoors and are designed to trip at the slightest indication that the juice is flowing out of the sytem (and into a person). I've heard of true breakers in actual outlets, but I've never seen one.
 
The reason I started this whole process is because none of our outlets in the house were GFCI, so I'm thinking that's not it either. I will be screwing with it tonight when I get home and will report back, well, if I make it
biggrin.gif
 
Nick's comment on how the wires back out a receptacle are dead on. Happened to me.

The screw terminals are a much more reliable connection.
 
really frustrated right now. there are 2 outlets and 2 light switches on this wall that are all out. the connections between these outlets, as well as the connections on the wall that, most probably, feeds this wall with power, all seem to be fine.

the switch that is closest in proximity to the other(hot) wall, and thus what i'm guessing is the first in line in this (cold) wall, has no hot wires coming into it at all. how do i know? i f'in grabbed each one...that's how not happy i am about this. i'm about to take all the wires out of each outlet and do the same experiment.

i WOULD just switch the outlets and the switches...however this house has these fancy casablance inteli-touch switches that control the fan and light and aren't your run of the mill switch.
 
Sorry about my flippant answer earlier.

You have already done everything I would have done to this point.

The next step is to challenge your assumptions.

You stated that they are all supposed to be connected together in this one wall. Do you think that may be wrong or that they are not connected in the order you think they are?

Having half work and the others not makes me think you might have a break in the wiring because you have the wrong leads tied to each other. Not hot and ground leads, but that the daisy chain order is wrong someplace.
 
Are both light switches supposed to control the same fixture?

How many sets of wires to each switch, 2 or 3?

Are they the original switches or replacements?

Multiple switches for a single light usually takes a special switch.
 
It's hard to really tell where you are without being there. GFCI's are not infallible and I had some defective ones in my first house that the buyer tried to use as an excuse not to buy the house after getting remorse.

Anyway, it could be that one of the dead outlets is where you have the disconnect, but it could also be disconnected in one of the live outlets. It is highly improbable that there is a wire broken somewhere in the walls. If you know which circuit is involved, you can check the outlets to see where the disconnect is. There isn't much point in checking switches as it is highly unlikely that your disconnect is in one of the switches. It's possible, but not very likely.
 
Thanks guys, no real progress, but here is what I can share:

I haven't replaced ANY of the switches and/or outlets in the ones that aren't working, nor any of the ones that are even in these two rooms, and I'm fairly certain that all my other switches and outlets have been done correctly. Actually I have replaced ONE switch on this circuit, and it only has two wires, so I'm of the opinion that is a dead end, correct?

Now, I've even drawn a scale model to show you what the deal is. I don't think it will help much, but it at least shows the location of what I'm working with.

The Link

The "Inteli-Switch" has 6 wires - 3black, 3 white. The 3 white are all clamped together. 2 of the blacks are clamped with a wire that is connected to the "Line" terminal in the outlet. THe other is clamped with a wire connected to the "Load" terminal.

Keep in mind ALL these worked in both rooms before, just like they are wired now.

I figure I either am barking up the wrong tree (like in the wrong daisy chain) or have a break in the wiring. What else could it be?
 
My best guess is that your intelliswitch is the key. Please quit touching wires to see if they are hot. It gives me the willies and it really can **** you up and I'm the guy who tongued a live wire accidentally. While your intelliswitch might be defective, I don't think it would gork the rest of your circuit. It sounds/looks like the juice flows into the Iswitch box where it gets broken and then flows to the rest of your outlets and switches. I would pull the Iswitch and make sure that all the whites are making good contact and make sure all the blacks are twisted together, too. What the intelliswitch does is take the juice and divide it twice. You have juice coming in to the switch once (black). It comes back out twice. One to the fan and one to the light. It comes in on the bottom of the switch and it is possible that it goes back out on the bottom to the rest of its journey to the dead wall. The switch sends out 2 loops to the fixture. It goes out black and comes back white. White is not connected to the switch. Since the fan is working, you have heat coming in and you have a good white(neutral) connection coming out in all likelihood.
If there is a nest of black wires in the box, turn off the juice and undo the wirenut and retwist them. There is a chance that they have come out of contact.

There is also a chance that the Iswitch is not on the same circuit as the dead wall. In that case, go to the outlet closest to the dead wall and check that connection. I can't think of any way to check to see which circuit it is on if it is not labelled.
 
I looked at you diagram again and I am going to bet that the problem is south of the room. I bet it has nothing to do with the Iswitch. When you say it has 6 wires coming in you probably see 3 blacks and three whites. The 3 whites are all twisted together and on black goes into the bottom of the switch and 2 go back out of the side. Go into the southwest side of the room that shares the dead wall and check that outlet to see if the juice is getting out of it.
 
Ok, I feel somewhat stupid. Two more outlets in the room don't work...and I have no idea why I didn't check them before. I think it's because they were both behind things.

Updated diagram: The Link

I am guessing the disconnect is happening between the outlet in the "NE" corner of the room and the "NW" corner of the room. Would that be the most likely?

All of the outlets have 2 blacks and 2 whites coming into them.

**** found another dead one, not on the chart....it's "SW" of the "dead wall". However just south of that outlet is a closet light that works - but I know that one is on a different circuit than the working lights in the other room.
 
Johnny,
In the post above I did not mean a break in the wires, just a broken circuit. I think you got it right, but Nick may not have.

Here is some basic stuff to check:

1. The daisy chained outlets with two white and two black wires need to be wired properly to the switches. usually, but not always, that means both black wires on one side (left/right) and both white wires on the other side.

2. The switches are labled line and load. the power comes in the line side and out the load side to the switched light/fan. Make sure the wires that are in the daisy chain to other outlets are connected on the line side with the power coming in. If you have the power connected to the load side of the swich and the light/fan to the line side your fan may still work right, but you may be swiching outlests in the wall.

My best guess is that either your outlets are wired wrong which is making a short in the circuit (white and black on the same side) and making no power go the the other side.

Or

Your switch wires are bundled wrong.

I will try and put a drawing up later, but I would concentrate on the first outlet that doesn't work. You might have the black and white wires shorted out there. Get e meter to test your wires.
 
a meter??? not just my finger?
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i am going to run by home depot at lunch and get one and go check some of them out. i'm mostly baffled b/c i haven't replaced any of these outlets and they USED to work. i'll update later.
 
Well, still nothing. I used my outlet tester to test every outlet within 2 rooms of this room and none of the outlets showed anything abnormal. And of course the dead ones showed nothing at all.

This has REALLY got to be something in the wall. If a wire had come loose in one of the outlets, wouldn't the outlet tester (one of the ones with 3 lights) show something abnormal?
 
No. It wouldn't. If the juice comes in, it would test fine, but if the wire for the juice to come back out is disconnected, it would not register anything on the tester.
 
It seems counterintuitive obviously, but you need to check the last working outlets in closest proximity to the non-working outlets.

The chances of it being "something in the wall" are infinitesimal compared to it being one of the "working" outlets that has a loose connection going to a non-working connection or the first non-working outlet having a loose wire.
 
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