Garage lost power

jkrodger · 10-14-2007, 10:54 PM

We have a detached garage with electricity running under the ground from our house to it. This electricity is used to control the garage door opener, the light in the garage, and the motion-sensor light on the outside of the garage. On Friday, out of nowhere, we lost power out there. There haven't been any storms, nothing appears damaged at any of those outlets, and the power everywhere else is fine. We checked the box and it appears that the circuit keeps tripping itself, but we don't know why. I should say that we haven't gotten all the circuits figured out though. Anything specific we should look for?

gregzoll · 10-14-2007, 11:19 PM

If the circuit is tripping itself, that means that there is a short. Start by unplugging everything in the Garage, including Light bulbs, and see if the breaker still trips itself.

jkrodger · 10-15-2007, 09:29 AM

will try this tonight.

Also just found out on my areas forum that a couple blocks from my house some kids were picked up for trying to break-in to a garage. They had diabled the motion-sensor light at that house. If they had messed with ours in an attempt to get into my garage (which would have been pointless unless they want a plastic christmas tree, some painting supplies, or a lawn mower), could that be causing the trip? I think I said it in my pp, but it looks ok, but I don't know how you would disable one.

J. V. · 10-16-2007, 12:38 PM

Does the structure have it's own main breaker panel? If so, the breakers in that panel should trip if it were in the structure. Not in every case!

If you have no main breaker panel, do as greggzoll said. Except I would turn every thing off, then one at a time turn things back on until you find the culprit.

If this does not help you locate the problem, it may be in the buried cable. Unfortunately you will need at least a multimeter or at best a megger.
Let us know and we can tell you how to troubleshoot the integrity of the buried cable.

Anyone been doing any digging in the area of the cable?????

jkrodger · 11-04-2007, 09:50 AM

Sorry, haven't been able to do this yet because I broke my ankle. We went out to investigate and the garage door opener is hooked up to a junction box but the motion-sensor light is hooked up directly to wires coming up from the ground and we don't know how to disconnect that without cutting the wire.

The garage doesn't have it's own main breaker panel, and so far it looks like just one switch on the breaker panel with the house.