Need Help. No lights, and no tripped circuit.

[LoveOldIron]

Hey guys. My upstairs lights are out, but the breaker wasn't tripped. I went to turn on the bedroom lights. They came on (2 separate fixtures), then immediately went out. Went to check lights in other rooms, and all light are out. Came back to the bedroom, flipped the switch again. This time yet get lights flickered a few seconds, then went back out. Went to check the breaker box, and nothing is tripped. There are 2 circuits upstairs. All the switches, and the outlets in one older room, are on one circuit. Outlets in newer rooms on another. That first circuit is out. Even the newer rooms are over about 20 years old. The lights in the bedroom where it all started were just replaced about a year ago.

I'll be pulling and checking the lights and ceiling fan in the bedroom, but that will have to wait until the morning. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Shiftless]

I am not an electrician. Maybe a sparky will respond soon. But in the meantime, here are my ideas...
I wouldn't be surprised if you end up finding that the switch was worn out or defective in some way.
Flip the breaker to Off, open up the switch box, take out the switch, temporarily join the 2 switch wires together with a wire nut and turn the breaker back on.
If the lights come on like normal, buy a new switch and you're back in business. If not, you have bigger problems.

If you are not experianced or uncomfortable with basic electrical repairs like this, hire an electrician.

 

[Norcal]

If the lighting & receptacles are on the same circuit the culprit could be a failed backstabbed, AKA "push & pray" connection in a receptacle.

 

[LoveOldIron]

I am not an electrician. Maybe a sparky will respond soon. But in the meantime, here are my ideas...
I wouldn't be surprised if you end up finding that the switch was worn out or defective in some way.
Flip the breaker to Off, open up the switch box, take out the switch, temporarily join the 2 switch wires together with a wire nut and turn the breaker back on.
If the lights come on like normal, buy a new switch and you're back in business. If not, you have bigger problems.

If you are not experianced or uncomfortable with basic electrical repairs like this, hire an electrician.

Thanks. I did give that a try after I posted, and no luck. Was really hoping that was it too.

 

[LoveOldIron]

I am not an electrician. Maybe a sparky will respond soon. But in the meantime, here are my ideas...
I wouldn't be surprised if you end up finding that the switch was worn out or defective in some way.
Flip the breaker to Off, open up the switch box, take out the switch, temporarily join the 2 switch wires together with a wire nut and turn the breaker back on.
If the lights come on like normal, buy a new switch and you're back in business. If not, you have bigger problems.

If you are not experianced or uncomfortable with basic electrical repairs like this, hire an electrician.

If the lighting & receptacles are on the same circuit the culprit could be a failed backstabbed, AKA "push & pray" connection in a receptacle.

Thanks. I'll be looking for that in the morning

 

[Musicinabottle]

Do you have an "as built" print for your electrical? If so, trace the line to your first light upstairs and see if you have a loose connection there. Also, I recently encountered a house that had several loose neutrals in the load center. It's a long shot, but you might check that.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

As said by Norcal, Either a back stabbed outlet or switch(switches have push wire terminals) or bad splice somewhere.

You will have to open stuff up.

Use a corded lamp for now.

 

[zmaxmotorsports]

If the lighting & receptacles are on the same circuit the culprit could be a failed backstabbed, AKA "push & pray" connection in a receptacle.

 

[Jazz1]

Test outlets, you may have a short that won't trip breaker. I had one last week after I disturbed some old wiring. Breaker for this out let was turned off...

 

[ChaseDE]

If the lighting & receptacles are on the same circuit the culprit could be a failed backstabbed, AKA "push & pray" connection in a receptacle.

Yeah, that was the problem in my garage. Ceiling outlet had went bad/backed out and took out the garage and part of the kitchen with it.

 

[Bottlecapdigger]

Sounds like an open neutral to me. Checks the connections in the boxes. BCD.

 

[Todd.Brock]

There is a small tester that will help determine open neutrals. The guys on this board are top notch and helped me last year. I had 3 outlets on the end of a GFI string go south when I plugged in a mitre saw. Weird— loose neutral wire in one of the bathrooms. Good luck!

 

[ChaseDE]

When I had issues sometimes the circuit was ok, and sometimes not, then I noticed when I opened my second garage door (doesn't get used much) the lights would flicker some.

So the quick test was a plug in handheld light, plug it in and wiggle just a bit, if flickering occurred the outlet wasn't right.

just sayin'

 

[Norcal]

Do you have an "as built" print for your electrical? If so, trace the line to your first light upstairs and see if you have a loose connection there. Also, I recently encountered a house that had several loose neutrals in the load center. It's a long shot, but you might check that.

In a single family residential structure? Not likely.

 

[My Old Tools]

I had issues with some plugs in our home after we bought it (from an electrical contractor). Went through all three panels and tightened all the screws, neutral, ground, and breaker. Many were loose, some had arced and discolored. One wasn't connected to anything, just hanging out in the panel.

 

[LoveOldIron]

You guys are awesome. Unfortunately I couldn't tackle it this morning like I'd planned. I'll be dealing with it after lunch, and I'll let you know what happens. .THANKS

 

[prostreetamx]

You can kill all the circuits in your house other than the one you suspect is the issue. Follow that circuit with a toner or a non contact tester until it dies. I normally hook a toner to the dead end of a circuit to find where you lost voltage. You will need to turn off all loads and unplug loads for a toner to work. It is most likely a bad connection in a box that worked fine until it didn't. Probably a loose wire nut 0r bad device. A bad switch will only affect one load and will not have any effect on anything down the circuit. Normally the home run feed will be in a box closer to the panel and the circuit will work away from the panel location.

 

[johnnyradiant]

Some places end up with a junction box in the attic space. Some of those boxes end up with poor connections on any or all lines. The most annoying is those attic spaces having the ceiling insulation upgraded after the fact, making locating all boxes even more troubling. I hope your fault is in an easily found box. If I were to find a bad connection I'd crack open several more locations just to make sure there are no other loose connections getting ready to rear their ugliness.

 

[Musicinabottle]

In a single family residential structure? Not likely.

Some people hold on to these things. I'm working on a house right now that was built in 1982 and they happened to have the prints. The remodel I'm doing for them was documented, including the electrical, for future reference. I just figured I'd put it out there.

 

[LoveOldIron]

Sorry I haven't been back with an update, but it's been a ruff weekend. Didn't have much time to investigate as some other issues game up that were more pressing. I checked the box. I tightened everything up, but no change. I was able to check some of the outlets/switches, and all passed. In the end, I was not able to find the problem, but I was also very short on time.

Whatever the issue is, it's intermittent. It's been in and out all weekend. I might not be able to deal with it for the next few days. I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks again.

 

[PCustoms]

Whatever the issue is, it's intermittent. It's been in and out all weekend. I might not be able to deal with it for the next few days. I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks again.

I'd shut this breaker off and deal with the issue when you have time. Living with an unknown intermittent electrical issue is a good way to burn your house down.

 

[LoveOldIron]

I'd shut this breaker off and deal with the issue when you have time. Living with an unknown intermittent electrical issue is a good way to burn your house down.

Did that

 

[Dadillac]

Had a similar issue two years ago in my newly bought house. Wife calls me at work and tells me that we are losing electric room by room upstairs. I left work so I could investigate. Was pulling my hair out for hours and finally called an electrician I used in the past. After calling him I went into the attic to get another look at things. I passed by the wire for the attic fan and brushed against it. The power came on. Okay so now where does the wire go. It came from the upstairs hall light. Pulled the light down and in the junction box was several neutrals wire nutted together. They somehow came loose. Redid the connection with a arger wire nut and all is well. Just my experience hope it helps you

Don

 

[LS6 Tommy]

I'd shut this breaker off and deal with the issue when you have time. Living with an unknown intermittent electrical issue is a good way to burn your house down.

Did that

First thing that crossed my mind when you said you'd live with it...





Tommy