All the electrical outlet work in my house except for 3. And they are not in the same room. Any ideas?

Question

We've flipped all the circuit breakers. I hate to call an electrician. Thnx

They all worked fine until one day they just stopped. One in the garage and one in each of the bathrooms.

We do have the outlet with the test buttom and we pushed it the first time this happened and they all started working again. And then a couple weeks later they stopped again so we tried pushing the button agian and nothing this time.

Answer 1

the outlets w/buttons are called GFI's and GFI outlets SHOULD each be on their own individual circuit but it's not abnormal to have them running in a series on one circuit even if their in separate rooms if this is the case the GFI that come from the feed first needs to be reset first or none of the others will reset. first make sure you reset them in the order you did the first time that got them working the reason for this is if you don't reset the main GFI first it will not allow power to the others so they can be reset, hopefully you can remember the order from the first you reset them and they worked. Good Luck!

Answer 2

I had a similar situation in my house. Fortunately my brother in-law is an electrician. The problem was one of the outlets were bad, first check the breaker and make sure it is on. Then test the outlet closest to the electric panel and make sure the reset button is on. When you hit the reset button you will hear a pop that means there is electricity in that outlet if you don't hear any thing the outlet is dead. If nothing works you should call an electrician anyway and have him fix the bad outlet.

Good luck
Moskie257

Answer 3

Ok this is what could be going on. Allong with having the circut breakers very often you can have a special type of outlet called a ground fault interupter. Typically these are used near water, like near a bath room or kitchen sink. Also, once you have one of these it will control every thing else down stream in the same line if it is wired correctly. You can tell one of these outlets because it will have two buttons in the middle of it. The first will say "TEST" the second will say "RESET". it sounds like either one of these has popped and you need to push the reset or it has just gone bad. Check the outlets that are not working if you find one with these two buttons press the "RESET". Pressing Test just causes a fault and you should hear the pop then pressing the "RESET" should get things back on.

If you don't see one of these then you probably have a loose or bad wire. Depending on your level of skill you could shut off the breaker for that area and take the cover off and see if you see a loose wire and reconnect it. But at that point the saftest thing to do would be to call an electrician.
Best of Luck

Answer 4

Could be lose wires in all 3. Could be disconnected on each from a past remodel job. Wires could be cut in basement or somewhere from remodel or fact someone prior didn't' want that one to work. Could be an odd breaker set up, specially if they are on the same wall but in different rooms, might be one breaker for them.

Buy one new outlet box and kill the main power breaker to the house, then change an outlet out. Turn power back on, plug in a lamp...work? Do this for each one to cheaply rule out bad outlets, if none still work and flipping all breakers with light plugged in doesn't do anything.....then you are at level of electrician to track the problem down.

Answer 5

Hello Kelli:

Since the outlets are in a garage and bathroom, I would suspect that they are all protected by a GFCI device, probably a GFCI outlet. These have little 'test' and 'reset' buttons on them. First try pushing the reset buttons. When these outlets fail, they usually stay on, but won't do their job if a ground fault occurs. They should be checked anually by pushing the test button and then resetting. If you have to get a new one, spend a couple extra bucks and get the commercial model (contractors always put in the cheap ones, which last maybe 3-5 years).

Good luck,
Steve (yendalg)

Answer 6

it may seem strange and it would be wired wrong...but I'm thinking its a GFCI outlet somewhere that's tied in for some wacky reason.

go to all your indoor and outdoor GFCI outlets...reset and test each one making sure each resets...if it wont reset it does not have power going to do.

"Get an electrician or increase your fire insurances seriously.
the electrician is safer and cheaper than running out of the house in your underwear at night not knowing where you kids are"

I agree...an electrician may be expensive but a wiring problem is a fire hazard and should be fixed by a licenced worker

Answer 7

You could have a GFI breaker that controls 3 different outlets if they are all on the same circuit. they are usually in a bathroom. Make sure it hasn't tripped. if so reset it.

Answer 8

do you have a meter at all? check and see if they are all on the same curcuit. you can do this by powering them up by using an extenion cord and get some short wires and put wires in plug and see if others have power. then start checkin by disconnecting the plugs as to where the problem is . try hooking up one side of power to to meter and the other to extenion cord experiment but be careful. also try and chase the wires back to the fuse panel does sound like a broken wire somewhere

Answer 9

Get an electrician or increase your fire insurances seriously.
the electrician is safer and cheaper than running out of the house in your underwear at night not knowing where you kids are

Answer 10

Yes, the three that don't work have a fault. Call an electrician.