It's possible that you may have a junction box buried somewhere and the
connections separated for some reason.

Last Christmas I got a call from a customer complaining that their outside
lights stopped working. I did all the usual opening up of switches and
outlets and the electrical panel, but couldn't find the problem. Then the
owner remembered that he buried a junction box in the drywall ceiling when
he finished off the basement a few years back.

Fortunately he remembered approximately where the box was and I cut a few
holes to find it. That's where the problem was. He had done all of the
wiring himself and did not twist the splices together before screwing on the
wire connectors. I was able to move the box and put a blank wall plate on
it for future accessibility.

Those electrical tracers are a beautiful thing, but they are not always a
sure bet. Putting a signal on wires in the wall and trying to trace it out
may make you crazy as you get readings from everywhere. I suggest that you
try and narrow the problem down to a certain area and play detective. Did
you do any remodeling and accidentally bury an electrical box? Did the
previous owners? Do you have any recessed lighting in the problem area?
Try pulling down the lights to see if there is a junction box there. Were
you able to determine if the hot wire is dead or is it the neutral
conductor? Or are both wires dead? Did you check the outlets that are
still working?

Let us know how you make out.


John Grabowski
http://www.mrelectrician.tv



wrote in message
oups.com...
In my home, part of a circuit is dead. The lights do not work and the
outlets are dead. This is only a portion of the circuit. I checked the
obvious things myself:

1.) Make sure no circuit breakers tripped
2.) Make sure no GFCI breakers tripped
3.) Open up some of the outlets to look for a loose connection

I could not find anything myself so I hired an electrician. He came
out and did much the same thing I did. Opened up a bunch of outlets
and could find no cause for the failure. So I paid for a couple of
hours of work and no fix.

The electrician indicated there is a tool that you can use to track a
wire through a wall to pinpoint where the break occurs. Unfortunately
he doesn't have one. I guess you would put some electrical generator
of a sort on a plug and then use some detector to track it along the
walls to see when the signal stops.

My question is this for any electricians out there. There doesn't
appear to be any obvious reason for the broken circuit. I need to find
an electrician with the right tool for this type of problem. What type
of tool should I require that they have? Is there an industry term for
the type of tool that is needed? I'm open to having them open up part
of a wall, if necessary, but I want high confidence that they really
know where the fault is (assuming it's a break in a wall).

Thanks.