Need electrical advice or electrician recommendation

Off Topic
#1

Ok, having some electrical issues at my house and need the brain trust. Yesterday, we lost power on at least three breakers without them tripping. GFCI is on one, but it won’t reset and isn’t getting power anyway (tested wires directly with a meter). I’m thinking it’s a problem with the panel, but is there something else I should check?

If it’s the panel, I’m probably in over my head and could use a recommendation for an electrician near DMS. Would prefer to support a small, local company over one of the big guys.

#2

Just out of curiosity: did this happen after any rain.

#3

yes, but not a gusher. Happened yesterday morning, and we’re in Farmers Branch.

#4

I only mention it, because I once had an intermittent ground fault that was due to some very minor water leakage causing a short to trip it. But it would disappear in a couple hours.

Not saying there is a cause and effect here - but just reminded me of it.

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#5

I’ve had breakers go bad but 3 at the same time is an odd number. Check voltage potential and then resistance between the ground socket and neutral (longer slot) on the dead outlets, the ground wire and white neutral are screwed to the ground bar in the breaker panel so voltage and resistance should be zero. Tighten all the ground and neutral screws on the ground bar and all breakers after shutting off main power disconnect. Remove a dead breaker by tilting out in the middle, examine the blade in the panel for discoloration. Swap a suspected dead breaker into known working breaker slot of same size or bigger, if the swapped circuit is now dead you know it is the breaker. If you have open slots and the wire reaches you can install the suspect breaker in an open slot and move the wire from the working circuit to the suspect breaker.
If you buy new breakers bring the old one with you, there are very slight differences in mounting. I bought a few spares to keep in the bottom of the panel.

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#6

Yeah, about that… this is a 50’s house with I’m guessing a 70’s panel. Few outlets have grounds, and I’m not sure at all that there’s a mains breaker. There is no disconnect outside like I’m used to seeing. I can’t quite figure out what the connected 30amp breakers in the middle are for. AC (still powered) is clearly one, and I’d guess the other is the drier (which is one of the breakers without power).

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#7

When you say they lost power, was this by checking outlets? Or did you pull the panel cover off to check? Did you check it with a meter?

#8

Good clarification. Sometime shortly before 11am, my wife was home and lost internet (one breaker). She didn’t realize we’d lost power to the router. She decided to do some meal prep and noticed the oven had no power (another breaker). That’s when she noticed two of the bedrooms had also lost power (breaker the router is on) as well as our master bath and laundry room (another breaker). I headed home to get our fridge plugged in to a working outlet (it normally shares with the oven) and discovered our porch light, hall light, and garage were also out (another breaker). I flipped all breakers off and back on, though I don’t think I ever powered them all off at the same time. I checked several outlets with my meter. Some read 0v and some 6.5v; I confirmed my meter was working properly on a working outlet (~115v). I haven’t opened the breaker panel.

#9

They distinct possibility is that it’s the outlets themselves that went out, not the breaker. Were any of the other outlets on the same circuit still working?

#10

Good question. It’s all outlets on a circuit as well as lights and appliances (other outlets). Pulling out the outlets, there’s no power at the bare wire.

#11

Have you checked the GFCI outlet? It may have been wired strangely. You never know how people wire things over the years. My GFCI feeds both of my bathrooms & an outlet outside. If the outlet outside gets wet, it trips my GFCI.

Another thought is a loose neutral or neutral block.

#12

The GFCI had about 6" of lead at most, and most wires pulled free when I opened it to check wiring. I rewired and powered the breaker back on, but no joy. I checked the bare wires at the outlet and no voltage. I checked each hot/neutral pair just to make sure the original line was indeed the line. No power to any of them with the breaker on. I know for a fact that it spans several breakers as I replaced a light switch on one of the now dead areas just a few days ago and confirmed power to another area of the house (now dead) from another breaker.

I’ve definitely never seen anything like this before. So bazaar.

#13

was the GFCI pigtailed? sometimes those come loose and that causes a similar problem to a short circuit without tripping the breakers

#14

If by pigtailed you mean that it had a line and two loads, then yes. They were definitely loose, and I was hoping that was the issue. But, I removed the GFCI and tested the bare wire pairs with breaker back on. No power on the supposed line or supposed loads.

#15

Have you checked the screws for each wire in the panel going to ground bar and the breakers.
Is the panel close to the meter like on the other side of the wall? If not might be a sub panel fed from somewhere else.

Check voltage at the breaker.
My daughter in phoenix had some electrical problems and I found power at the breaker but not at the outlets, didn’t make sense. A neighbor said he had a similar issue and found a wire nut in a junction box in the attic had blown off when a breaker tripped, it was aluminum wiring. Its a rental house so landlord called someone in for my daughter. You have to use special wire nuts and outlets and switches rated for aluminum wiring.

#16

I haven’t opened the panel yet, but I’ll take a look when I get home from work. The meter is about 10’ up on the outside wall. As near as I can tell, the feed goes from the meter into the house to the panel on an inside wall.

#17

If you need an electrician we had great service from MD Electric in Carrollton . Guy’s name is Mike. He replaced our service drop and panel at a fair price, did great work. The city electrical inspector was like “shoot, Mike, if I’d’ve known it was your job I wouldn’t’ve even needed to come sign off. Y’all do great work.”

He doesn’t have a web site as far as I know - here’s the Yelp page with his deets

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#18

I second the recommendation. We’ve used him at DMS also.

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#19

Ya’ know – when you said “50’s house with maybe 70’s panel”, I’m thinking go straight to electrician. Especially when you couldn’t see a place to shut the whole thing off at once. You’ve got a boatload of good suggestions, but I can see that eating up big quantities of time and maybe/maybe not solving the problems.

And even if it’s water-related, the electrician could probably find those quicker than you can.

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#20

And they call the Plumber.lol

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