All the outlets in one room stopped working, the lights still come on. I replaced the breaker and all the outlets and it's still not working. Help me.
By Shinji
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You probably have a wire broken somewhere. It could be dangerous. I suggest you turn off the breaker until you can find out what is going on. Also note that the lights and the outlets may not be on the same circuit. Find someone with electrical experience to help you trace out the circuit and find out where the problem is.
The very same thing happened to us recently. Outlets that go out together do so because that set is connected to one another by the wiring in the walls.
If there is a break in the power anywhere along that circuit they will all go out. It won't necessarily blow the fuse or the circuit breaker.
While it could be caused by a broken wire, it could also be just an old outlet that stops functioning due to age (ours was actually cracked inside), or a wire may have worked its way loose from the outlet over time and just needs to be refastened.
In our case, we upgraded all the outlets on that circuit with new units rather than just replacing the one that failed. All of the outlets are the same age (35 years), so we figured there is no point in waiting for them to fail one by one.
Because you've replaced all of the outlets, and the breaker, yet still have having electrical problems, it's safe to say that you have broken wires inside the walls on the circuits that are showing continued problems. The breaker you replaced may not be feeding the problem circuits, did you carefully 'map' your circuits before attempting a fix? The following link takes you to an excellent DIY site with extensive home electrical info, this page teaches you how to map your circuits:
www.hometips.com/
I think, though, that at this point you need to get a licensed-bonded-insured professional electrician in there as soon as possible. Broken wires in a wall are a terrible fire hazard.
A professional has insurance (in case he/she makes serious mistakes and causes damage), and several tools in his/her kit that most homeowners don't even know exist-one of those tools is an electronic, battery operated hand-held device that detects 'live' current travel through most wall covering materials including plaster and lathe. This device will quickly discover the location of broken (or chewed, rodents in the walls happen in the best of homes:) wires so that the exact location can be found and the correct repair made. This saves tearing up long swathes of wall to find the bad wires, for one thing-a real savings right there that makes the cost of having a professional actually quite cost-effective.
Until you have a safe, correct and total fix, the safest thing to do is cut the power to the areas you are having problems with. Please do it now no matter how inconvenient because a house fire is the ultimate in 'inconvenient' you can experience!
Please update us when you have this sorted. It's always great to know when another family has been saved from the dangers of a house fire, and it's a valuable bit of information to add to the knowledge base.
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