Ive got 2 dead receptacles

[srmofo]

Just like the title reads, both are in my dining room. Ive tracked both on the same wire. 1 of the receptacles is at the end of the circuit. From there it goes to the second bad receptacle.

After that it seems to zig-zag around the basement (literally its all over the place), then into the crawl space where it meets with a very large bundle of romex. At this point, it gets confusing, because I cant reach it to follow it by hand. The entire bundle heads to the panel. Some wires shoot off to other areas of the house, but these are the only 2 dead ones I know of. Im assuming they are on their own circuit, but I really have no idea.

Full disclosure, this house is OLD. somewhere around 1907. However it has been updated, unfortunately it wasnt done by a professional....or at least not by one that took pride in his work. And it appears to have been added to several times on account of the different brands of romex near the panel.

I want to start fixing some of this **** so I dont mind buying a tracer for the job, I just need one that is affordable and works reliably.

Any other ideas

 

[bigblk1177]

Hello I'm no electrician, but I ran into the same problem a couple weeks ago turned out to be broken connection on side of one of the receptacles itself. I would look at the side of the first BAD receptacle and check the little side connectors between the top plug and the bottom where your wires connect. One of mine was broke had to look close to even see it. Hope this helps.

 

[Greatbear]

Remove each of the dead receptacles and check if they are back-stabbed (wires stripped and pushed into holes in the back of the receptacles as opposed to wrapped around the screws). Backstabbed receptacles are notorious for failing, since the connection is sketchy at best. When chaining receptacles on a branch using backstab method, the draw from all the subsequent outlets on the branch can overheat the connections, making them intermittent or open. Also, check the neutrals carefully as well, it's not always the hots that fail.

 

[madstat]

OP didn't mention this in the first post but did you test to see if the wire into the first box with the dead receptacle was hot?

 

[srmofo]

OP didn't mention this in the first post but did you test to see if the wire into the first box with the dead receptacle was hot?

Yeah sorry about that. The wires going into the first receptacle are dead, thats why I was looking for a good tracer.


Funny thing though, I just had another receptacle in the garage fail. It kept tripping my gfci. So I unhooked halfway and started back tracking till the gfci didnt trip. Removed the suspected outlet, jumped the wires together and the rest of the circuit was also good. The damn thing is only 6 months old and it was one the more expensive 20amp receptacles, not the $0.39 bargain box blue ones. Yes Im running 12/2 with only 6 receptacles on each circuit. Im hoping that was just a rare occurance, because as soon as I found it, I remember it being kinda stubborn the first time I plugged something into it.

 

[kaffine]

For cable tracing I like Tempo tone sets. They take a bit of getting used to though. It is not intended for line voltage applications so make sure power is off.

The other way is to just try and figure out what other outlets might be on that circuit and check the connections at each outlet.

http://www.tempo-textron.com/prod_detail.cfm?cat=800&subcat=803&pid=10426