Flipped the light switch in the gym room, the bulb flashed, and all the electric in that room died. Aha, must be the circuit breaker. However, the circuit breaker for that room was not tripped. But I pushed the breaker off ... and then on again anyway. Still no power. All other rooms OK. What's wrong? -- Thanks, Mary
First be sure the breaker was for that room. It is unlikely one room would be on a circuit by itself. Check all the breakers in the panel and look for one that is just slightly askew of the on position, and reset it. If the problem is not at the panel, it is an open circuit at one of the outlets in or near the room that is dead. Often it is found in a receptacle that has the wires installed into spring clips in the back of the outlet, (backstabbed) rather than turned around the screws on the side. As outlets and lights are "daisy chained together, you'll likely find the problem in the first dead outlet in the string or the last live outlet in the string
Mary,
That could be caused by several things. First I'll assume you have a meter to check that there is no voltage there for sure.
If so, check back at the breaker first. They do go bad sometimes. Also, make sure you have the full voltage on that breaker not just 55V or something like that to indicate a bad leaky breaker. Assuming the breaker is good you'll need to kill the power and check usually at each receptacle to make sure the power is going through from one to another and then finally the light; might not be in that order. It's possible the wire broke off the receptacle/switch or in some rare cases just corroded. If you don't feel comfortable tracing the circuit then you'll need an electrician.
JJack wrote:
Do not assume that everything for one room is on one breaker. Have you checked each outlet in that room? If not, it could just be a bad light switch. No matter what the problem is, if you can't find the right breaker, either shut the electric off to the whole house before working on it, or call an electrician.
That's very common here.
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