Stimied on dead recepticals

[oldwino]

Not an electrician here but I’ve done my fair share

Situation is I have two exterior outlets on adjacent side of the house that both went dead after several years. All breakers are on and everything on a GFI inside is working. Other exterior outlets work fine. Traced to no power at these two dead indians but looking for a hint as to where damage may be

Thanx guys



Mod edit: Threads merged/ double post deleted.

 

[Dumber than lumber]

Not an electrician here but I’ve done my fair share

Situation is I have two exterior outlets on adjacent side of the house that both went dead after several years. All breakers are on and everything on a GFI inside is working. Other exterior outlets work fine. Traced to no power at these two dead indians but looking for a hint as to where damage may be

Thanx guys

Those problem outlets: are they GFCI? Not clear to me from your post.

 

[Wayne1340]

Those problem outlets: are they GFCI? Not clear to me from your post.

If they are standard receptacles check other GFI receptacles to see if there is one tripped

 

[Wayne1340]

Also check light switches that you don’t know what they control, they could be a switched

 

[PelicanPines]

It could be a pain... but see if you can figure out which outlet "Feeds" the two outlets that are dead. The outlet (that may work) that feeds the dead ones... might have an issue.

I live by the ocean... stuff corrodes horribly sometimes. All you need is a hurricane or over zellous pressure washing.

I personally have ONE GFI outlet inside my garage and all the exterior outlets are daisy chained on the feed side of the GFI. So outside the receptacles are "Normal" but are fed by a GFI so they will respond to a Ground Fault.

So 2 things... see if you can find the GFI that feeds the outside... see if you can find the outlet that feeds the two dead ones.

 

[Showkey]

Internet Guess # 1

Those two dead outside outlets are being fed off another GFCI outlet or circuit that you have yet to locate???????? That other GFCI outlet/circuit is tripped. Garage, basement, kitchen counter or bath is the common hiding spot.

 

[Los_Control]

When you look at the side of a outlet, there is a tang that connects top to bottom.
Very useful, you can remove it and wire top & bottom different ... top on a switch etc...

Point is, if the outlets are wired together, the tang can burn out much like a breaker tripping.
I had just wired up some new outlets and a light to the attic access ... not a electrician, but know enough to follow code on breaker & wire sizes & matching outlets.
Anyways the tang on the new outlet blew, just poor quality. Everything after it was dead.
I replaced it 15 years ago and no problems since ... just first & last time ran into it.

Find the breaker that runs that circuit, check the power at the nearest outlet to them ... if one has power on top but not bottom, could be it. Depends how it was wired but is a idea for a strange issue.

 

[Wrench97]

Usually I find another outlet upstream that uses back stabbed connections and blew the one out that feeds these outlets.
Be careful with the "dead" ones as it may be the neutral that is dead and the hot is still live(you can check between the hot and ground wire to find out).

 

[oldwino]

Forgot to mention, I believe these are on a GFI. Unfortunately electrical has been modified by previous owner and stuff isn’t all marked out correctly. I have verified that all recepticals are live except these two. Los Control may have something with a blown tang on the upstream end. Will check this possibility

 

[Dustball]

I ran into a similar situation- turned out to be a loose neutral wire in a daisy chained back-stabbed duplex just upstream of the dead one.

 

[Dustball]

I ran into a similar situation- turned out to be a loose neutral wire in a daisy chained back-stabbed duplex just upstream of the dead one.

 

[Yankeefarmer]

My daughter complained of a dead overhead light fixture in her kitchen. Months earlier, I had discovered that the light was fed from a GFCI outlet installed by the previous owner. This time, though, the GFCI receptacle would “test” and reset normally, the receptacle itself was fine, but there was no juice across the load terminals for feeding downstream devices. I hadn’t seen a GFCI outlet fail in that manner before.

 

[65ranchero]

GFCIs do go bad had 2 of them on 2 different circuits
My electrician said he buys them by the box and I think he said failure rate is better than 15/20%

 

[oldwino]

Frustrating!
Every receptical inside and out is hot except these two. Weird thing is neither is at the end of a run. I’ve pulled out 6 and none are backstabbed so don’t think it’s a loose connection. Thinking I may pull off an existing/working outlet and rewire these with known power

 

[Los_Control]

yeah you need to check the wires going in to the outlet .... not the outlet. Find where the power stops.
But yes is not easy as installed wiring is not easy to get to.

 

[welder4956]

Not an electrician here but I’ve done my fair share

Situation is I have two exterior outlets on adjacent side of the house that both went dead after several years. All breakers are on and everything on a GFI inside is working. Other exterior outlets work fine. Traced to no power at these two dead indians but looking for a hint as to where damage may be

Thanx guys



Mod edit: Threads merged/ double post deleted.

These two must be fed from another outlet nearby. Look inside the boxes for the closest receptacles inside the house to see if the feed comes from there. I would suspect a loose wire or bad receptacle upstream, or possibly a wire chewed through by a rodent.

You might also plug one of these in the dead receptacle and start checking others nearby:

https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-ET310-Circuit-Integrated/dp/B07QNMCVWP/ref=asc_df_B07QNMCVWP/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=344005018279&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=258522675320281056&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012570&hvtargid=pla-738005504290&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=69357499415&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=344005018279&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=258522675320281056&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012570&hvtargid=pla-738005504290

 

[PelicanPines]

Shut the power off in the outlets near bye... do a continuity test... see if you have a broken neutral or broken positive...