Lights not working

jwozni2

No, the bedroom and bath are the closes to the garage where the breaker box is.
All the outlets work fine. It is just the light.
You are probably correct that it is the same breaker that supplies the power. It would be very weird if they were separate and went out at the same time.

Did you mean a break in the wire?
This is interesting because the house is only 1.5 years old and I would not expect anything like that to happen so soon.
It has been very cold recently.
If this is the case I am assuming I will need to have the wire replaced.

Thanks a lot for all you help.

Steelhead

I am thinking more of a bad connection in a wire nut or a back stabbed receptacle - something like that. Temperature fluctuations cause movement and it is possible that a bad connection may be the result. I would just take a systematic approach to tracing out the circuit you believe powers the lights. Start at the panel and trace the wires to each box until you find the break/bad connection.

jwozni2

I am sorry, I am not familiar with the terminology. When you say bad connection in a wire nut or a back stabbed receptacle, what exactly are we talking about.
Also, should I call an electrician for this?
I am not sure how to find a fault in a wire without cutting it and retesting. I am sure there are better ways.
Thanks again

Steelhead

Not to offend you but if you don't know what a wire nut is you might want to hire an electrician or someone who is familiar with eletricity to help you. Wire nuts are little plastic cylindrically shaped pieces that connect wires together. They would be found in the boxes. To connect wires together about half an inch of insulation is stripped of the end of a wire. You then group the wires together and place a wire nut over the stripped ends and twist the nut onto the wires until the nut is nice and tight and the group of wires has a few twists in them. Sometimes the connection in the wire nut doesn't get made properly resulting in a bad connection. Back stabbed receptacles are receptacles where you stick the stripped end of a wire in a hole in the back of the receptacle instead of placing the stripped end of the wire under one of the terminal screws located on the side of the receptacle or switch. Does this help?

I think there is a bad connection in one of the wire nuts or at a receptacle so no power goes to the switch.

jwozni2

Once you described them I know exactly what you are referring to. I will check them out. If I don't get anything I will call an electrician. Thank you again for your responses.

Steelhead

No problem. Be safe. 120V can kill you with no problems whatsoever.

emolatur

I'm going to make the random guess that the breakers have been misidentified.

One breaker is labeled for the bedroom, one for the bathroom. I'm randomly suggesting those are for the bedroom outlets and the bathroom outlet(s), respectively. I'm going to guess that the lights are on a different breaker, which may or may not be tripped.

Two circuits don't both develop random opens at the same time.

An open neutral on a shared-neutral circuit will leave both of the downstream loads in series with each other across 240. One side will get OVERvoltage.



Both offending lights are on the same circuit and there is one problem - either a tripped breaker or ONE bad connection.

frenchelectrican

Ok Now I can see where this goes and this OP did have AFCI breaker per NEC code requirment but the bathroom have standard breaker due he have the GFCI receptale there in the bathroom.

Now most likey a connection issue either at the switch or at one of the wirenuts on that affected circuit.

Check the bedroom receptales to make sure you are receving power if so then you will have to check the switch box to make sure it is good and tight.


If some reason if you are not confortable you can call in electrician. or someone who know the electrical system very well.

Merci,
Marc

emolatur

I'm not differing from frenchelectrician's statements at all - where he's going is what you need to do if, in fact, there's a problem.

Just reiterating however: I think, based on the information provided thus far, that it is HIGHLY likely that the offending lights are on a circuit OTHER than the two that have been tested, and it can't hurt to test (and/or cycle) ALL of the breakers in the panel before digging into the wiring.