receptacles de-energized

[topend]

looking for a little help in determining why/where 4 kitchen receptacles are suddenly not working. I checked to make sure that there wasn't a tripped GFCI receptacle that they might have been wired to as loads. No breakers are tripped. Is there any circuit tracing device that could help me locate either the circuit breaker it is being fed from and/or the open connection? It is otherwise a time conusming, and therefore costly job opening up all outlets in the vicinity. I spent 2 hours on this job with nuthin to show for it, so far.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[John120/240]

So if these recptacles worked at one time they should again. Do you have power at the panel

on all breakers ? If yes, can you follow the wires from panel to kitchen in bsmt or crawl space ?

Look for obvious problems, mouse damage, or j-box. GFCI do you have power to the line side ?

Bad GFCI would not let power continue down stream. Depending on age of home, power might

go to garbage disposal or fridge first then to GFCI. If that is the case, loose connection in fridge,

or garbage disposal box. Others will chime in with their own theory

Greenlee or Ideal make circuit tracers

 

[gar]

120819-1502 EDT

Get a three wire extension cord from a known working power outlet, and bring the extension cord socket to the kitchen area. Create a 25 W and a 15 W incandescent test light. Also have a high impedance DVM.

Connect one side of the 15 W test lamp to the extension cord hot wire. The other side of the bulb use as a test probe. See if the bulb lights when connected to the neutral of each receptacle. If it lights at full brightness at each outlet, then the neutral is probably connected back to the main panel. If the bulb got very bright and burned out, then neutral is probably connected to a 120 V leg of opposite phase to your extension cord hot wire. If the test light does not light, then the neutral is open going back to the main panel, or it is at 120 V of the same phase as your extension cord.

Next pick one of the non-working receptacles and connect the DVM in AC Volts range between hot and neutral. The voltage should be near zero or not very large. Also test the voltage from the extension cord neutral to hot, neutral, and EGC of the dead circuit. If there is some voltage, then put the 25 W lamp load on the socket between hot and neutral. Now the voltage should be zero. Assuming this is the case, then connect the 15 W test lamp test wire to the hot slot of one of the outlets. Both bulbs should glow dim. There will be about 35 V across the 25 W and 85 V across the 15 W if the source is 120 V.

This provides a voltage divider between the extension cord hot and the outlet neutrals. The divided voltage will be between the outlets hot slot and neutral. Check that the same voltage exists between the hot and neutral slots of each outlet.

Use the 15 W test bulb to test each EGC slot of each outlet. The bulb should be full brightness.

If all these tests check out, then it points to an open in the hot side somewhere.

If some of the tests above failed, then you need to find out why. Suppose the test light did not glow full brightness when connected to the neutral. Is the neutral open, or is it connected to a 120 V leg instead of neutral?

.

 

[480sparky]

If you've done the obvious (removing the receptacles and checking for open splices, verifying the OCD has voltage, etc.), then I'd start with a circuit tracer. Start tracing the circuit from box to box, then eventually back to the panel.

 

[hurk27]

If this is a newer house or wiring just trip and reset the GFCI receptacles, I have had this happen a few times where the GFCI didn't get reset all the way and or the hot contact didn't completer the circuit, if these are counter receptacles and there are two GFCI receptacles then these GFCI's would be the first thing I would check out, it wouldn't be the first time I found one that would reset but not have power on the load screws.

 

[Hv&Lv]

looking for a little help in determining why/where 4 kitchen receptacles are suddenly not working. I checked to make sure that there wasn't a tripped GFCI receptacle that they might have been wired to as loads. No breakers are tripped. Is there any circuit tracing device that could help me locate either the circuit breaker it is being fed from and/or the open connection? It is otherwise a time conusming, and therefore costly job opening up all outlets in the vicinity. I spent 2 hours on this job with nuthin to show for it, so far.

Thanks,
Rich

Need some more information...
How old is the house. Is it a mobile home? Is there an outlet in the crawlspace/basement below?
Backwired outlets?

 

[jeremysterling]

Because of my background, I assumed he was talking about a commercial kitchen! My first thought was they are under the hood and shunt-tripped from the fire suppression system.

 

[jxofaltrds]

looking for a little help in determining why/where 4 kitchen receptacles are suddenly not working. I checked to make sure that there wasn't a tripped GFCI receptacle that they might have been wired to as loads. No breakers are tripped. Is there any circuit tracing device that could help me locate either the circuit breaker it is being fed from and/or the open connection? It is otherwise a time conusming, and therefore costly job opening up all outlets in the vicinity. I spent 2 hours on this job with nuthin to show for it, so far.

Thanks,
Rich

Have you verified that the egc goes back to the panel? Then the grounded conductor? Then the ungrounded conductor?

 

[templdl]

Not much was said about the age of the residence or the wiring method used so it appears to left to out own assumptions.
With my experience my first thought that the circuit is wired from the panel to a junction box in an attic where the circuit is branched down the wall it an outlet or two and then maybe some daisy chaining from those outlets.
I would check to assure that the wire nut connections in the junction box have not failed.
Also, I may have missed the fact if both line and neutral conductor continuity has been lost or if only one of them. If the grounded conductor circuit is open with the circuit energized and loads still connected use a voltmeter to measure the voltage between the neutral and ground. You will read 120v at every point in the neutral circuit up until the point where the neutral is open reading '0' volts on the panel side. You will then conclude that you should investigate the neutral between the point where you measure a voltage and where you measured none.

 

[ggunn]

Check the easy stuff first. Have you checked the output of the breakers at the panel?

 

[hillbilly1]

Look for a hidden gfi, if there is no voltage to ground on the hot, and the neutral is open to ground, it is very likely a gfi tripped. I went behind an engineer that wired a brand new house, bath receptacles dead, tracked it down to a gfi receptacle underneath a workbench in the basement. Do not be surprised if you find one in the most illogical place!