The mysterious dead outlet

snakevargas

Active Member
I have a receptacle where the "hot" wire is dead. The neutral and ground do seem to be connected. It only has one romex, so it's the end of a branch. I checked the nearby boxes and the hot wire doesn't seem to run to them. Short of pulling apart every box in the house until I find which one the electrician wired this outlet to, is there an easier way? Is there a tool that can be used to trace the wire in the wall?
 
I have a Tempo 77HP Toner with a Tempo 200FP Probe which works very well going the other direction.  It should work for your situation as well.
 
BraveSirRobbin said:
Stupid question; but, this isn't a 'switched' outlet is it?
It's a plain ordinary duplex receptacle. I did flip on the nearby light switches just to be sure it wasn't wired to a switch for some unknown reason. I also checked nearby GFCIs to make sure they weren't tripped.

It has yellow jacketed Romeo going to it, and I believe that indicates 12ga, so my bet is that maybe it is connected to a kitchen branch.
 
I used a toner for LV unconnected wires but never for an unconnected 120VAC wire.  Its mostly been using a multimeter and voltage checker.
 
Really though the best way is to find the to and from of the wire(s) in question by pulling covers, switches and outlets to see and validate all HV wires.
 
Its really time consuming though.
 
Personally you don't want to second guess the electrical connections or logic utilized by whomever did the original electical.
 
You mentioned a kitchen branch.   Personally here my kitchen and electrical for kitchen is on multiple breakers.  That said its only 4-5 circuits here.
 
During my last switch upgrade I did pull just above every cover and looked at all of the wires to get the logic of what wire was going where.
 
Just go slow. 
 
Agree with the tone generator.  You can rent nice ones or buy a cheaper one from HD for maybe $40 or so (or you can buy a nice one).  I suggest getting a good one, whether you buy or rent, they just work better.  It is just a matter of cliipping the tone generator to your hot wire that's not hot, then follow it by waving the tone receiver over the sheetrock/floors/ceilings until you get to the other end of it.
 
This trick worked well for me, for tracing LV cables, with a tone and probe - connect the red lead of the tone generator to a conductor, and attach the black lead to an independent earth ground. For LV cables, I use a nearby grounded outlet. For Romex, I think running a LV conductor to another outlet ground may be helpful, for grounding the black lead.
 
If you measure continuity from ground to neutral at the outlet you can assume that they are both connected at the breaker box.  If you feel comfortable working in a breaker box you can try the following.
 
Shut off each circuit breaker and then the mains.  One by one disconnect the neutrals at the breaker box until you lose continuity from ground to neautral.  As you reconnect them re-torque your neutral buss connections.  Once you identify the circuit then you can remove the continuity meter, reconnect the neutral, turn on the main breaker and then the specific branch circuit.  That will energize the circuit that the outlet is on and you can see what is live in the house.  That will help you narrow down where to look,.  Turn power off again when you work on the circuit.
 
Should save you some time.  Of course it will be the last circuit you check :)
 
A couple of years ago I added a surge protector to my panel.  That said I did label rearrange the circuits a bit inside of the panel.  I went really slow in doing this process documenting each circuit to label the inside of the panel. (low on the WAF at the time for the spent doing this) 
 
Not too long ago I updated a bunch of switches over to UPB. 
 
That said I started retracing my circuits back to the panel and did fine one neutral on the neutral block loose for whatever reason as I thought I had throughly checked and tightened up all of the neutrals (white) on the neutral blocks in the panel. 
 
I'm thinking maybe I just missed it as they are close together.  I did also check all of the hot leads to the breakers and did find 1 loose one which didn't really make any sense to me.  (thinking temperature changes?). 
 
The above mentioned actually started a conversation with a friend about and if circuit breakers deteriorate after some time (rated amp draw tripping stuff) or do loose connections / arcing stuff cause premature wear on a breaker?
 
edge said:
just a guess.... ...maybe the kitchen GFI tripped
Check them both. They're good.

I even pulled the GFI closest to the dead outlet and had a peek in the box. Didn't see any obvious problems, but I didn't really want to pull a wire nut (it feeds two branches from that GFCI) to find out unless I know I'm in the right spot.

I placed an order for a Fluke toner set. Seemed a little cheaper than the greenlee, and I've had good luck with fluke test equipment before.
 
Digger said:
If you measure continuity from ground to neutral at the outlet you can assume that they are both connected at the breaker box.  If you feel comfortable working in a breaker box you can try the following.
 
Shut off each circuit breaker and then the mains.  One by one disconnect the neutrals at the breaker box until you lose continuity from ground to neautral.  As you reconnect them re-torque your neutral buss connections.  Once you identify the circuit then you can remove the continuity meter, reconnect the neutral, turn on the main breaker and then the specific branch circuit.  That will energize the circuit that the outlet is on and you can see what is live in the house.  That will help you narrow down where to look,.  Turn power off again when you work on the circuit.
 
Should save you some time.  Of course it will be the last circuit you check :)
 
 
Good thinking.  The free way to do it.  Although time consuming with a touch of "don't touch those main lugs by accident" excitement.
 
An electrician with a good tone generator could probably track down your problem in less than 5 minutes.
 
Derp! I spent $70 on a toner set to lead me to a downstairs bathroom GFCI that was tripped. I guess I have too many bathrooms.

Using the toner was pretty fun though, and I know it's going to come in handy again some day in the future.
 
snakevargas said:
Derp! I spent $70 on a toner set to lead me to a downstairs bathroom GFCI that was tripped. I guess I have too many bathrooms. Using the toner was pretty fun though, and I know it's going to come in handy again some day in the future.
 
Those damn GFCI's.  I had a similar situation in a house I lived in a long time ago.  Bathroom outlet was dead.  It took me a week to figure out it was the GFI in the garage. Why the electricians feel like it is so important to save a couple bucks and string those together instead of just putting one at each location is beyond me.
 
Back
Top