Electrical problem in basement

[L. Green]

I am trying to diagnose a problem I am having in my basement. Here are the details

Recently I was repositioning my desk lamp when the bulb blew. As a result all of the ceiling lights and most of the wall outlets in the other room no longer work. I have tried resetting all of the breakers although none of them were tripped and I still cannot get those lights and outlets to work. So my current situation is in the computer room where the bulb blew, only one outlet works. The other does not. In the den area outside the computer room all ceiling lights do not work but one wall outlet does. I am trying to figure if it is possible another electrical box is covered somewhere or the electrical wiring really screwed up. This house about 50+ years old. Any suggestions on where I should start my search?

[L. Green]

I think this is the problem. As a test, I switched off all the breakers one at a time to ensure that it affected some part of the house and none of them switched on those lights and outlets. Do you have any suggestions because I am stumped.

[Spud]

GFI upstream

Here are the

other room no

blew, only

the computer

somewhere or

years old.

[Stephen Kurzban]

[L. Green]

Spud, You mentioned GFI upstream, what do you mean by that?

Stephen, I held the breaker in the off position for about 5-7 seconds without any luck.

I just can't understand why after cycling every breaker that those lights and outlets would not come on. Then again I am not an expert :-)

[Dave]

You say you were playing with a desk lamp and then suddenly you lost power in one basement circuit but you can't find a tripped breaker? First why don't you label all of your breakers so that from now on you will know what they are? After doing that perhaps you will find one breaker which does nothing. Perhaps it is bad.

[L. Green]

Dave, This is my first home, we moved in about 10 months ago and when this occurred I found out the hard way that a couple of the labels inside do not match what is controlled. The previous owner just installed a new breaker box before my wife and I had the house inspected.

Spud, the one outlet that does work is a GFCI unit. I did press the reset button when all this occurred.

[Dave]

Ok, did you find a circuit breaker that does nothing? Have you ever done electrical work before? Do you understand basic house wiring? Do you want to fix this yourself? Are you cautious enough to do electrical work safely? Even if you know nothing there are books on the subject at any library or hardware store. You should not need any equipment beyond a 110/220V indicator (a neon bulb with two insulated probes) and standard tools.

You either have-

-a loose connection.

-damaged wire

-a bad GFI

-a bad circuit breaker

[ggreen1]

John this is exactly the type of advice I am looking for. I will post the results when I get it resolved. It may take a week or two but I will follow up.

Thanks