Higgs Boson wrote:
On Aug 8, 5:05 am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
Options come to mind:

* Bad circuit breaker, not delivering power.
* Dirty contact between breaker, and the bar that supplies
power.
* Bad connection at one of the outlets, so the power goes as
far as a particular outlet, but no farther
* Broken wire, along the way
* Bad connection at the neutral bar

OK, that's a hefty laundry list.

Just to push this a little; which is the most
likely candidate to go bad out of the blue
after decades of problem-free operation in
a mild environment?

That would be:
"* Bad connection at one of the outlets, so the power goes as
far as a particular outlet, but no farther"

This is a classical symptom of a failed 'push on' connection
at the back of a 'daisy chained' outlet.
Obviously, please be extremely careful and work safely.

Set your multimeter to 'AC Volts'. If it does not autorange,
set it's range at 300V or more.

Open your breaker panel and confirm that each breaker is
supplying nominal voltage to it's connected wire.

Rig an extension cord from a 'known good' outlet over to
the location of your broken outlets.

Confirm that you see about 120V when measuring between 'hot'
and 'neutral' on the extension cord.

Measure between neutral on the extension cord and the hot side
of the broken outlets. You will see one of two things.

Low voltage. Like 3V - 40V or so. Open 'hot' side, probably.
Confirm this by measuring from the 'neutral' side of the
broken outlet to the 'hot' side of the extension cord.
If you now get nominal voltage, you probably have an open
'hot' on the broken outlets.

Nominal voltage. Like 120 V or so. Open 'neutral' side, probably.
Confirm this by measuring from the 'neutral' side of the broken
outlet and the 'hot' side of the extension cord. If you see
low voltage, you probably have an open 'neutral' in the
broken outlet string.

In either case, you get to find the first outlet in the chain
that connects to the circuit breaker.


Turn off the main breaker before opening the outlet boxes for
inspection. Any outlets that use the 'push on' connections
in the back should be replaced so that the wires wrap around
and are secured by the screws in the side of the outlet.
Wrap the wires so that they grip the screw threads as you
tighten the screw.

Plug in a known-good table lamp into the broken outlet and
turn on the main breaker. If the lamp goes on, you can
turn off the breaker and button things up. If the lamp does
not turn on, you can turn off the breaker and call an electrician.

Tell her the symptom and everything you've done. She will probably
turn off the main breaker and do resistance tests from outlet
to outlet and from outlet to breaker.

It'll be right either way, eventually!



--Winston