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power loss on one circuit in house

2K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  ddawg16 
#1 ·
Lost power on one circuit in 5-br house: most of master bedroom, all of 5th bedroom, hallway light and hallway bathroom. Even though mult outlets replaced, wired properly, 3 out of 4 in each affected bedroom read "hot/ground reversed" . Circuit breaker NOT tripped. Shutting off main power for awhile did lead to restoration of power to affected areas ONLY IF hallway light was left on. Turning on bathroom light caused hallway light to become brighter. Turning on a bedroom light worked once, but a second light shut everything down again. It was also noted that the hallway light switch which has been replaced, suddenly controlled ALL the following lights : affected bathroom and affected bedrooms. Power company ruled out external or breaker box problems. No GFI outlets upstairs. Junction box in atic above these rooms appears normal. No odors or sounds from any outlets or switches......thoughts???
 
#3 ·
I will bet your neutral is faulty !
Start at the first thing in the line,
Check for a active hot line,
use a non contact tester !
If the hot line tests as active,
Then use a volt meter across the hot line and active line,
If this test is negative, then your neutral is bad.

If both tests are positive,
then move onto the next thing in the line
and repeat both tests.

You will soon find were the fault is !

You need to do both tests,
to test both the hot line,
and also the neutral line.

I suspect your problem lies in the neutral line.
 
#4 ·
How did you wire the outlets?

If you used the back-stab feature (wires pushed into clamps on the back of the outlet), then I would bet this is your problem.

Do a search on Pig Tails. That is how I prefer to wire up outlets.....unless it's the last one in a string.
 
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