The National Electrical Code at that time required GFI protection on
bathroom, garage, basement, outdoor, and kitchen receptacles. The kitchen
circuits are required to be separate 20 amp lines. The bathroom receptacle
was not required at that time to be a separate 20 amp line as it is now.
Unless your locality did not adopt or enforce the code, it's difficult to
believe there is no GFI protection anywhere.
Assuming that you have already opened up each receptacle and checked for hot
and neutral, your next step would be to open up all non working receptacles
and check continuity between them. Disconnect the receptacles. Draw yourself
a diagram and tag each wire to get a visual image of how the wiring is run.
Determine which wires are supposed to be the feed from the circuit breaker
panel. That should help you decide where you need to look next. If you
don't have continuity between the panel and the first outlet, then your
problem is somewhere in between. In that case you may have to open up some
walls or just refeed the first outlet. Be careful. Since all of your
circuit breakers are hot, you may find your mystery hot wire during your
investigation.
It is possible that you may have a broken wire in the walls and a continuity
test will help determine that. Disconnect all wires including the bare
grounds and check for continuity on all conductors.
John Grabowski
http://www.mrelectrician.tv
"harry manka" wrote in message
om...
"John Grabowski" wrote in message
.net...
It is possible that there is an outdoor receptacle on the same circuit
that
may contain the GFI.
The next step would be to open up the problem receptacles beginning with
the
one close to the electrical panel. Not only should you check the hot
connections, but you should also check the neutrals as well. Tighten
down
all of the neutral terminal screws in the electrical panel.
How old is this house?
John Grabowski
http://www.mrelectrician.tv
John, the house was built around 1987-88 timeframe. It's fairly modern
and well built house as my neighbors tell me that the builder was very
good. Not many people say that about builders. I am not the original
buyer.
I checked the entire house for any GFCI outlet/s and couldn't find
any. No GFCI breakers either. I find that hard to believe. I had
previously checked ALL non-working outlets (there are 4 of them- 1
each in upstairs bathrooms, 1 in the dressing room adjoining master
bath and 1 in garage) and no outlet is getting electricity at live
wires in those outlets. I did not check the neutrals but does it
matter really! I mean if there is no electricity at live, then I don't
expect it to be at neutral. ALL breakers have electricity at live
wires....so basically I am at the end of my investigation. Is it
possible that the cable is burnt inside the wall where I can't see?
The thought sends chills up my spine. I would think the breaker would
trip before something like that happens.
may be it's the time to call an electrician.....
Harry
"harry manka" wrote in message
om...
Update....
1. There are no GFCI receptacles anywhere in the house. No GFCI
breakers either. One hair blower has test/reset buttons.
2. There are 18 branch circuits. 14 were identified/labeled by me
before (but not the ones in garage and bathrooms).
3. The garage outlet and 3 bathroom outlets are not working. My guess
is that they are on the same branch.
Now....I checked all 18 breakers and they all work. but none of the
outlets in the garage and bath have electricity coming to them. I even
checked the hot wires coming to them. I did not see any signs of
burnout. Does this mean that the cable from the breaker to the first
outlet has open/is burnt?
I can get electrician to fix this if I have to, but I like the
challenge and the knowledge I end up getting by doing myself.
Harry
Greg G wrote in message
. ..
On 4 Aug 2004 20:30:03 -0700, (harry manka) wrote:
Well...this is where I am stuck. I don't know which breaker is for
the
branch circuit for the garage and bathrooms and I don't know how to
check for a defective breaker. No breaker was tripped off and they
all
seem to be mechanically working.
Can someone provide tips to me as to how I should go about
diagnosing
and repairing this problem short of getting an electrician? Thanks
in
advance.
Harry
OK. Other people have already told you that your knowledge, as of
now,
is not up to the task of electrical work. They're right. But I
believe
that intelligent people can learn new things. I've been doing a lot
of
that in 6 years of home ownership.
So let's start with something simple. Breakers don't generally flip
their toggle switch to the OFF position when they trip. They move a
little bit in that direction. The switch is indeed OFF, but the
toggle
looks like it's still on. You need to flip it to the OFF position
and
then back to ON to reset it.
Now a harder lesson.
The typical electrical work you might do as a homeowner isn't all
that
difficult to learn. Get a good book, ask an electrician friend to
show
you a few things and you'll probably be OK with simple jobs.
But the most important thing is to learn to avoid taking the easy
way
out. You needed an outlet so you found the nearest available
electricity and daisy chained onto it. After the fact you're finding
out that maybe you'd be sawing some 5/4 oak in the yard while a
couple
of 1500W hair dryers were running in your bathrooms.
My house was built in 1949. Electricity was a less integral part of
life then, at least judging by the wiring in my house. The original
wiring was all on four circuits and each one has a random assortment
of lights and outlets from all over the house on it. I can cut the
original builders a little slack though, as they probably could not
foresee the explosion of electrical device use that would happen in
the next 50 years.
But worse than the original installation are the numerous clumsy
additions put in by handymen. I went to change a light fixture last
spring and ended up with a full day's rewiring job. Someone had
decided that it was perfectly OK to daisy chain off a light fixture
in
a 3" octagonal box to power two duplex outlets in TWO OTHER ROOMS.
There were 4 BX cables meeting in this box, so it was packed solid
with wire and wire nuts.
This was shortsighted and dangerous. For your sake, and for that of
future owners, do the job right. It usually doesn't even require
that
much more work; just a little planning will suffice. I've added 8
circuits to the original 4, which means that pretty much all the
heavy
current items are on their own new circuits. The original wiring
just
handles the lights and minor items like clocks, the stereo, etc.
Greg G.