Electrical Problem, Garage recepticles lost power

[Joe Mioux]

I have a problem with my garage recepticles. This past Sunday, I unplugged the garage refrigerator to defrost it, and when I went to plug it back in nothing happened.

I checked the circuit breaker and it was not tripped. I flipped it back and forth a few times thinking something was loose, but still nothing happened. I checked the other recepticles and they all have no power

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance
Joe

[Jim DeLaney]

Sounds like you may have a GFCI somewhere 'upstream' that affects all the garage outlets.

GFCI's are a Code requirement for garages in recent years.

[Rob Russell]

Yup - check for a tripped GCFI. When you find it, you should put a label on each receptacle on the load side of the GFCI that says "GFCI-protected". I did some and included where the GFCI receptacle is that protects them. GFCI receptacles com with little blue stickers. I used a label-maker that's black lettering on white tape because it's not as obvious and I could indicate the location of the GFCI receptacle.

Rob

[Jerry Clark]

If it is not a GFI controled circuit-- check the recepticles for loose connections. Start with the one closer to the panel!:cool:

[Matt Meiser]

Our home inspector also recommended not plugging a fridge into a GFCI. Of course if you want it in the garage, and code requires it...

Also, along the lines of what Jerry was saying, you might want to pull out the receptacle you were plugging the fridge into first. You might have a bad connection in that box that came loose as a result of the force of unplugging and plugging in the cord.

[Joe Mioux]

No GFCI problems. I will try to check out the "fridg recepticle" which happens to be the closest recepticle to the breaker box.

Can a circuit breaker go bad?

[Matt Meiser]

Can a circuit breaker go bad?

Yes, but I'd bet it is the receptacle.

[Rob Russell]

Our home inspector also recommended not plugging a fridge into a GFCI. Of course if you want it in the garage, and code requires it...



Even in a garage, the NEC does not require an appliance to be on a GFCI-protected receptacle. For a single appliance like a refrigerator or freezer in a garage, to meet code, you'd need to have a single outlet receptacle (couldn't use 1/2 of a normal receptacle). The code exception is in 210.8(A)(2) Exception #2 if you're interested in looking it up. The same holds true for unfinished basements, except the applicable code section is 210.8(A)(5).

Rob

[Michael Perata]

check for a tripped GCFI. Rob

If your house is a production built home, the GFI is sometimes located in a bathroom with the rest of the circuit being used for the garage. (False economies.)

[Randy Meijer]

If your house is a production built home, the GFI is sometimes located in a bathroom with the rest of the circuit being used for the garage. (False economies.)

Very true.....I found out the hard way in my girlfriend's new house after she had an electrical poblem that took me a lot longer to resolve than it should have. Also discovered that the outside recepticles were on the same GFCI!!!

[Mike Cutler]

Joe. A circuit breaker can most assuredly go bad. The actual mechanism that supplies the over current trip protection is internal to the breaker. If it is bad, no amount of flipping the breaker switch will reset it, you will need to replace the breaker if the duplex receptacle is not determined to be at fault.
If you have no power in any of the duplex receptacles, and the breaker that supplies them has been correctly id'd, and there is no GFCI in the branch circuit then you may have a breaker fault. It happens a lot more often than you would think. I currently have a collection of 4 bad 120 breakers and one bad 220 breaker.

[Joe Mioux]

Mike I think you are correct.

Is there a way to test the breaker?

[Lee DeRaud]

Mike I think you are correct.

Is there a way to test the breaker?It's a long shot, but I got burned by this once: to reset a tripped breaker, you have to push it all the way to the OFF position until it clicks, then turn it back on.

[Bryan Somers]

Joe make sure the outlets were not wired using the spring loaded push in connections on the back of your outlets. These are poor connections and have caused alot of problems in my house. My daughter recently purchased a home that was wired that way and I found one that had about an inch of exposed wire where the insulation had burned off and the wire melted at the outlet.

[Mike Ramsey]

Mike I think you are correct.

Is there a way to test the breaker?

Joe,
Remove the panel cover and locate the breaker in question then use a voltage
meter or multimeter to test between the wire that is terminated on the breaker
and the neutral or ground bar. This will tell you if the breaker is working at the
panel.