"Donna" wrote in message
news:A3GQi.1551$pl2.471@trndny09...
Hi guys!

About two years ago, we finished (to be precise, we hired a contractor to
finish) our breezeway, turning it into a room. After the renovation was
complete, we discovered that the outlet on the interior wall, and it's
matching outlet on the garage wall, and our porch light post, are now
dead.

It's been two years, obviously this isn't a pressing problem, but geez,
I'd
love to have that porch light back. Any suggestions as to how to figure
this out? The renovation consisted of wallboarding over the exterior
walls
of the breezeway (e,g, we didn't open up the wall where the fault must
lie -
between the interior and the first exterior (garage) plug. We did take
the
ceiling down to the studs, but iirc, there was no wiring there.

Can I safely assume that the fault lies in the wall between the
breezeway-cum-office, and the garage, rather than anywhere in the wire
between the breezeway/office and the front porch?

How do I tackle this?

And, erm... considering it's two years after the fact, and realizing this
is
a bit late to be asking... is there any risk of fire with the dead wiring
in
the walls?

As always, thanks for your kind assistance. Help me Obi-Wan! You're my
only hope! (Well, my only hope other than calling an electrician and
opening up the finished walls. Eek.)

Thanks!

Donna

Romex is very tough stuff, so unless there was work done with a saws-all or
such after the finishing work, it will be a connection issue. First step
would be to check the outlets that have failed. If you know the most
upstream (first on the circuit from breaker box), check to ensure it isn't a
bad outlet. Get a circuit tester and see if the hot wire has juice. If so,
then the outlet could be faulty and not only is it non-functional, it is
blocking current from travelling to the next outlet on the circuit. If not,
then you need to work upstream from there. One of the junction boxes will
have a bad connection, you just need to pray it's accessible.

This assumes there are other plugs/lights on the circuit that DO work, and
that it isn't a bad circuit breaker in the box. I just figured you checked
for that already.
Cheers