Hi,

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?

Thank you in advance!

Aaron

"Aaron Fude" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?


Open up the receptacles and check the connections. You might see a burn
mark on one of the receptacles. Check for juice with a pigtail socket and
light bulb.

If you have no juice anywhere on these two receptacles a simple continuity
tester such as a flashlight with leads or a volt ohm meter should work to
see if they are connected together. Remove the wires from the receptacles
and at one receptacle location connect the ground wire to the hot wire (The
wires MUST BE DEAD to do this) and go to the other receptacle location and
check for continuity between the hot and ground wires. You may have
multiple conductors at each receptacle location so you will need to check
each one. Continuity between the ground wire and the neutral will probably
exist because they are connected together at the main panel.

Aaron Fude wrote:
Hi,

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?


Once you get them working, you can use a circuit detector such as:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=96934

Aaron Fude wrote:
Hi,

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?

Thank you in advance!

Aaron
When you get them working you can turn off one breaker at a time until one
of them goes off, then check the other. If it is off they are on the
same circuit.

Bill Gill

Great idea! Again, out of curiosity, why not do this with a hot and a
neutral?

On Apr 21, 10:38*am, Aaron Fude wrote:
Great idea! Again, out of curiosity, why not do this with a hot and a
neutral?

Because if the open is intermittent and revives while you're working
on it your house will burn down. Unless you got the right breaker
turned off, but what if you made a mistake? Sometime safety practices
are redundant, but that's because humans make errors.

Joe

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:58:44 -0700 (PDT), Aaron Fude
wrote:

Hi,

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?

Thank you in advance!

Aaron

Check for a GFCI tripped. Some outlets in the kitchen and bath have a
reset button on them and many have an indicator light to tell you if
they are working.

If two outlets are dead, it is a pretty safe bet they are both on the
same circuit.

Most homes have 8-10 receptacles on the same circuit.

"Aaron Fude" wrote in message
...
Great idea! Again, out of curiosity, why not do this with a hot and a
neutral?

You could do it with the hot and neutral wires. I just always use the
grounding conductor myself to start and then check all of the conductors.

On 4/21/2008 5:15 AM HeyBub spake thus:

Aaron Fude wrote:

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like to
find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to find
out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as an
intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this question
may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools does one need
to make this determination and how does one do it?

Once you get them working, you can use a circuit detector such as:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=96934

I'm curious about that "circuit breaker detective", which looks like a
right handy tool to have. Have you used this or similar? How well does
it work? Does it always identify the correct breaker?


--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter.

- Attributed to Winston Churchill

David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 4/21/2008 5:15 AM HeyBub spake thus:

Aaron Fude wrote:

I have two outlets in the house which are not working. I would like
to find out whether they are on the same circuit. Is it possible to
find out whether these outlets are connected? Please treat this as
an intellectual curiosity question. I know that answering this
question may not solve my problem. But I am curious: what tools
does one need to make this determination and how does one do it?

Once you get them working, you can use a circuit detector such as:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=96934

I'm curious about that "circuit breaker detective", which looks like a
right handy tool to have. Have you used this or similar? How well does
it work? Does it always identify the correct breaker?

Yeah, I've got one. Yes it works as advertised.

I don't know if it always identifies the correct breaker; it has so far.