Outlets down after A/C repaired.


  #1  
Old 05-15-03, 08:33 AM
jeffknight
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Unhappy Outlets down after A/C repaired.

Hello all. I have browsed these forums for a while and have found them very helpful, and thank you all for that.
I have a problem now that I am struggling with. We had our A/C fixed a few days ago, and right about when they shut off the breaker for it, we lost power to a few outlets in the kitchen. The A/C is all back and running again, but the outlets are not. I know they are not on the same circuit, so I guess there was a spike or something that caused this. I have two breakers in the breaker box that are labeled "Kitchen". One covers two outlets, including the one used by the fridge and those work fine. The other breaker, I assume, is for the 3 broken ones. When I shut if off no other outlets or power goes off in the house. The wierd thing is that when that breaker is On, there is a lot of current going through it, about as much as the rest of my house (TV, Stereo, Fridge, Freezer, lights, clocks and such all running). I have checked the wiring in the three outlets with a volt meter and no juice is going to any of the wires. I also switched that breaker with the other "working" kitchen breaker and nothing changed. I have reset all CFCI outlets in the house (which by the way was built around 1970 and has aluminum wiring). Any ideas?
 
  #2  
Old 05-15-03, 01:20 PM
J
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Two possibilities: (1) You reset all the GFCIs except one. (2) The A/C installers plugged some big tool into one of the now-dead outlets and caused a backstabbed neutral connection to fail.

Suggestion: Go to Home Depot and spend $8 on a plug-in receptacle tester (the kind with three lights, two amber and one red). Plug it into all the dead receptacles and post back what the reading is.
 
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Old 05-15-03, 01:37 PM
jeffknight
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Thanks for the reply. I have one of the 3 light testers from home depot. All the plugs have no lights showing, which translates to an open hot, if I remember correctly. I also used that on the GFCI's and they all came back as working properly. The A/C guys never came in the kitchen, so they never plugged anything into those outlets. On the dead outlets I did us a volt meter to test the hot, neutral and ground, and never got any reading from any of them.
 
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Old 05-15-03, 02:59 PM
J
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Then my best guess is that you missed a GFCI somewhere. You could also try turning all breakers off and back on again.
 
  #5  
Old 05-15-03, 03:04 PM
jeffknight
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I did also turn off and on all our breakers. I will look again for any missed GFCI outlets, but I don't think there are any I don't know about. If it was a tripped GFCI, then why would that breaker be drawing so much current when it is flipped on? If it was a tripped GFCI, wouldn't there be no current? When I flip off that breaker, nothing in the house loses power, but that current has to be going somewhere.
 
  #6  
Old 05-15-03, 04:26 PM
J
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GFCIs can be in the oddest places. Most of the time when people are unaware of them is because they haven't seen them for ten years, the length of time they've been behind the chest freezer in the garage.

A GFCI only shuts down the part of the circuit that is downstream from it. The rest of the circuit could still be live.

Just curious, but how do you know that "that breaker be drawing so much current when it is flipped on"?
 
  #7  
Old 05-15-03, 08:19 PM
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Do you feel comfortable working in the circuit breaker panel?
I think the breaker may be the culprit. The most preliminary test is check between the terminal on the bad breaker with a voltmeter (with breaker on) to the panel frame, of neutral buss.
Does this AC have a dedicated circuit? What voltage? 120 or 240?
What type of panel do you have? (SquareD, GE, Murray, siemens, ITE, challenger, westinghouse, bryant, etc.)
Turn off the non-working circuit. Pull out the receptacles and check the terminations, and for any loose wire nuts.
----> I reccomend having a 'ticker', homeDepot carries them ~$12
size of a magic marker, senses the magnetic field around a hot wire if it is energized. Helpful for truobleshooting and safety. Old wiring is always full of surprises.
Please note that Aluminum wire requires special terminations, wire nuts, devices, and anti-oxident. Thus far, the NEC has not banned small-gage AL wire. All of us Pros wish it had decades ago.

gj
 
  #8  
Old 05-16-03, 08:25 AM
jeffknight
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Last night I finally found the problem. There was a short in a junction box. A little "live wire" tester I got at Home Depot showed that one wire going it was live, while the other 2 were not. So once I pulled them out and re-connected them, everything was good. There were aluminum and copper wires in there, and I know those two don't get along, so they must have been the reason. There was anti-corrosion goo on the connectors, though. Thanks for your help! - Jeff
 
 

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