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Dead line in the garage

SilentNoise

Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
5
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Hey everyone. Typical long-time lurker here, but have something I wanted to bounce off the guys with more household electrical troubleshooting experience than I:

I own a townhouse with a single-attached garage. There's a line on one of the side walls with two outlets (the only two on that circuit) and now it's suddenly just gone dead. I hadn't used them for most of the winter, so it was a bit of a surprise when I went to use them a little while ago.

After checking the panel in the basement, the breaker wasn't popped, isn't dead, and there is power in that line leaving the panel, but the wires go up into the walls in the kitchen, go wherever they go, and don't emerge until about 6-feet before the first plug. I've also tested the plugs elsewhere in the garage, and they're still good as well. The place was only built in 2005, so we're not talking about old wiring, but obviously there's some kind of break in the line somewhere. In the meantime, I've turned that breaker off to avoid any possibility of the unthinkable.

So with all of that said, I've got questions:
- First of all, any idea what could cause something like this other than just complete randomness?

- Obviously I'm not ripping apart my kitchen to chase wires in the walls, so unless someone else has another option that I haven't considered, my thinking was that the best option is to just disconnect that existing line entirely and run a new one, correct? (doing this job with the way the place is built is incredibly simple)

Thanks
 
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MFolks

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Feb 3, 2013
Messages
1,045
Location
Springfield Mo.
Remove one of the good outlets, and see if the wiring was "Back Stabbed" going to the dead outlet, as they have been known to loosen up over time. Forming a loop with needle nose pliers, and then using the side screw terminals, make for a better, safer connection.
 

rvr6000

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Joined
Oct 3, 2010
Messages
1,072
Location
St. Paul, MN
I'm putting my money on a GFCI that is either tripped or bad ... or a poor connecting backstabbed cheap outlet.

Not an electrician but had the exact same thing happen to me last summer.....and the GFCI was in a completely different room so it wasn't something you thought about because you couldn't see it from where the problem is.
 
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laser3kw

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Joined
Nov 17, 2012
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7,276
Location
northen IL
Turn off the power / breaker -then Remove one of the good outlets, and see if the wiring was "Back Stabbed" going to the dead outlet, as they have been known to loosen up over time. Forming a loop with needle nose pliers, and then using the side screw terminals, make for a better, safer connection.
fixed it for ya!
 

ForceFed70

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 27, 2010
Messages
3,441
Location
BC, Canada
As others are already getting at: The vast majority of the time that this happens it's due to a bad connection in an electrical box.

What I'd do is start with the closest plug or switch box that is on the same circuit as your "dead" outlet.
 
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SilentNoise

Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
5
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Thanks for the responses.

I haven't checked every plug in the house to see if there's any random dead ones, but the only GFCIs in the place are in the bathrooms... at least off the top of my head anyway.

I suppose there could also be a chance that the Electricians who wired the place did something funny, but the panel is very clearly marked, so I'd HOPE they weren't stupid.

Sigh. Time to go hunting plugs. Where's my gun?
 
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SilentNoise

Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
5
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Wow. Usually it's after you check 50 plugs and move furniture that you FINALLY find the culprit. I started with the one out on the back patio and sure enough, a tripped GFCI. I don't think I've even opened the cover for that plug in the 6 years I've lived here. Time to add "Patio" to that "Garage 2" label.

Anyway, thanks for the help everyone! It's good to have my drill press plug back.

On a side note, whoever wired this place obviously wasn't concerned about how much they were using. The panel's roughly in the middle of the basement. That means they went halfway down the house to the back wall, 12 feet across to where the plug is, up the wall, 70-75' through the ceiling to the front, then down the wall. When you multiply that by the 50 townhouses in the complex - assuming they're all wired the same way - that's a hell of a lot of extra wire.... but hey, I'm not the Electrician I guess
 
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