Electrical Problem

[Rob Bodenschatz]

Last night during some heavy winds & rain, we lost power to our outside electrical receptacles. Don't know exactly what happened. The rest of the house is fine. I thought maybe the circuit breaker tripped but when I checked the panel, it hadn't. I tried flipping that circuit off and on a few times but I can't seem to get power back to those outlets. It is a GFCI circuit but I can't seem to find the reset button on any of the outdoor receptacles.

Wouldn't be a big deal except for, you know, the Christmas lights. Anyone have any advice short of calling an electrician?

[skip coyne]

look for gfci on a inside outlet I have my outisde outlets protected by a upstream GFCI located inside

also if your using outlet strips look for a fuse or breaker on them

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Rob..........Check for a GFCI tripped in your house and insure you don't have any breakers tripped. My house was built in 1966. I have two outside outlets and they are wired in a circuit with wall outlets inside the house. Before I built my shop.....when I was woodworking in the shed...which is wired paralleled with one of the outdoor outlets.....If I was using my halogen construction lights and 2 1500 watt electric heaters....if my wife used the microwave in the kitchen...it would trip the breaker.

[Rob Bodenschatz]

None of the breakers in my panel are tripped. I'll look again but I thought I located all of the GFCIs inside. Nothing seemed out of order.

Is it safe to assume that there should be a reset button SOMEWHERE that controls those outdoor receptacles? I just need to find it?

[Frank Hagan]

There's probably a GFCI outlet that the wiring goes to before it goes to the outside outlets. My house has two GFCI circuits; the one in the garage is the first outlet and it serves the two outdoor outlets. The second one is for all three bathrooms. They had to run a lot of extra wire to link them all together, but back when GFCI outlets were $50 a piece and wire was cheap, that's the way they did them.

[Rob Bodenschatz]

Thanks guys but my frustration level is at an all-time high right now. I've gone through the entire house about ten times trying to find this GFCI reset. It's not on any of the outdoor boxes & I checked all the indoor ones (kitchen, baths, basement). I left a message for one of my neighbors to see if he knows where it would be since he has the same model house as ours.

Just what I wanted to be doing today.

[Rob Bodenschatz]

Found it. Now I really feel like an idiot. There's an outlet right next to the electrical panel that contains the reset button for that circuit. I couldn't see it because I've had the panel door open & it was covering it up. All is well. :o