This circuit powers two electrical outlet in the back bedrom and a light in a bathroom, as well as a wall outlet in that bathroom which has a GFI receptacle. I needed to move that receptacle, so I uncouple the wiring, ran it to the new location, then re-connected the receptacle. In the process two of the wires shorted together briefly, but did not trip the breaker. Now all looks good, the GFI LED is lit. The bathroom light switch works. But the wall sockets in that bedroom no longer have power.
Is there some peculiarity about GFI that would explain that?
re: In the process two of the wires shorted together briefly
Help us understand this situation:
You have an existing circuit with wires that were running through a wall. You disconnected the wires from the GFCI, pulled them out of the wall, fished them to the new location and reconnected them to the GFCI...while they were live?
1 - turned CB off
2 - disconnected cable from receptacle
3 - cut the ends of the wires, staggered cuts, insulated.
4 - wrapped with duct tape
5 - fed into new wall space.
6 - turned CB on
7 - dinner break
8 - Drilled hole in new wall.
9 - fished wire out with coathanger
10- grabbed wire with pliers to pull the slack
11 - SPARK! Concerned spouse appears to accept confession.
12 - turned off CB.
13 - Stripped and connected wires. White wite to terminal marked "WHITE" on receptacle, black to "HOT", ground to ground screw.
14 - Pushed the wired receptacle back into the box and screwed it down. Ditto faceplate. (currnetly not wall-mounted, construction in progress)
15 - turned CB back on. LED glows, lights work, all is good.
16 - Back to bedroom/office, PCs won't power back up. The two common non-GFI outlets on the same circuit are dead. One is switched, the other not.
Anything is possible, but I think it was secure when I packed it into the box. and now that i think of it, I did not verify power to the plug, just that the LED was lit
Your description is only of one cable. Unless you have other cables involved that weren't reconnected, this outlet relocation has nothing to do with the other outlets not working.
As RBM hinted at, unless the wires to the outlets in the bedroom were attached to either the Load side of the GFCI receptacle (thus protected by the GFCI) or to the same Line screws as the input of the GFCI (therefore not protected) then just moving the GFCI should not have impacted the bedroom outlets in any way.
Either there is something else that you left out (for brevity) or something else was disturbed that you didn't notice or this is just a weird coincidence and unrelated to the relocation of the GFCI.
IMO the problem is not GFI related but dead short / tripped the breaker related.
It depends on how the existing installation is wired up......
A dead short will send a whole lot of current through your circuit. If you have any questionable (high resistance) connections along this run they will have been zapped pretty hard.
My ex-boss, now retired, did something similar but not quite as unsafe.....he wound up re-setting the breaker having mistakenly wired in a dead short. When we tried to re-set the breaker, it blew instantly. He re-set it again & it held but everything downstream of his mistake as dead.
I went over to his house on Sat afternoon & tried to diagnose the problem.......we even eventually found the problem. A back stab receptacle that was installed YEARS ago ..one of the hot wires was loose, corroded & burned. Did a pigtail installation & replaced receptacle with a back wire one.
everything fixed
in your case, my guess is a bad connection (wire nut, back stab, ??)
do oyu get any volatge reading? in my ex-bosses case we were getting ~2V......I'm guessing that the bad connection had such high resistance nearly all of the 120v was dropped across it
One of my customers. Went to use the central AC. The furnace didn't blow cold air. The breaker to the furnace was tripped. She reset it. Many, many times, until the breaker stayed on.
Original problem: Motor windings shorted, in the blower motor. Secondary problem: Repeated power surges vaporized the contacts of a relay on the circuit board.
Result: Many phone calls to find the right brand and type of motor and board. Far more expensive repair.
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