Stovebolt.com Forums The Front Office The Greasy Spoon Any home electrician out there????

Last night as I got ready for bed I turned on the hall light for that end of the house. No lights. I check the circuit breaker it seems to be ok. The strange thing is half of the master bedroom has no power but the bath and some of the wall sockets in the north part of the area do. 2 other bedrooms and the hall ceiling light do not. I check the breaker seems ok it does not flop around. Any helpful suggestions would be welcome. The house built in 1971 and it was built by the same contractor that built about 400 or more in the area. Not the best quality.

sounds like a GFI has tripped.

That happened to me years ago.
One leg of the 220 buried underground to the house shorted out.
Your ac probably also does not work.
Power company came out and repaired the same day at no charge. Made a mess in the yard though.
They are responsible to the meter, the rest is yours in your house.
Call them right now and they should have someone there in just a few hours or less.
Tell them your age and they will make it an emergency call.
Let us know what it turns out to be.

Don

We lost power to the front bathroom a month or so back. I called the electrician because none of the breakers had tripped. Before he got here I discovered a GFI receptical behind some books that had tripped and the rest were daisy chained off of it.

I would like to echo what tiny said. Check your GFI and see if that cures the problem. The last place I lived had a seldom used restroom. It also had a couple of exterior receptacles. One day the outdoor receptacles just stopped working. No GFI, and no tripped breakers. I puzzled over this for a while, and by accident I needed to use the outlet in the restroom. No juice. I reset the GFI and the restroom came back to life, and you guessed it so did the outdoor receptacles.

He was here already. He check the GfI, only one in the house pronounced it ok and it is the bathroom that all the lights and fan works . As far the electric company tells me in letters wanting me to buy insurance for anything outide the house, because they say it is on me. He is coming back Monday. Strange it is the 3 bedrooms and hall way in that end of the house. One recepticle in the bedroom is on with north part of the house. BTW a/c is fine.

Here they're responsible for everything their side of the meter.

Where I'm at , lights in the ceiling are wired separate from outlets. If you blow a plug, the lights stay on, I guess would be the reasoning. Since the AC takes 2 legs and works, I would say you lost a wire at an outlet and not one of your legs. Everything downstream from that lost wire would be dead. Has happened to me more than once in my life. I would head to a receptacle that is used often. That minor movement from plugging and unplugging could've made one of your wires pop off if the original electrician didn't tighten it down like he was supposed to.

BTW, this is assuming you have a HVAC, not a window AC unit. If this is the case, check to see if one of your 220v items works. Compressor, dryer, etc. If a 220v item doesn't work, you've lost a leg.

If your house was built in 1971, it may have aluminum wiring, or at least a hybrid copper/aluminum. Aluminum wires are prone to separating at the wire connectors. If so, they can cause arcing and/or overheating of wires. Just something else to check.
don