My house and its electricity

TyrantCow

so

i go to mow the lawn now that spring has sprung and dread of winter has ended

i have an electric mower, i plug the bad boy in, turn it on, nothing.

i have 2 outlets on the outside of my house, two in the garage. none of them seem to work. according to the breaker box they're all on the same circuit (?). i flip the son of a bitch back and forth like a monkey on crack. nothing.

how i fix?

or, perhaps, how do i go about trouble shooting it. i've plugged in multiple devices, nothing on any of them.

Mushiwulf

You could try testing the outlets with another device to make sure the problem isn't your lawnmower.

Edit: somehow missed or misread your last line. If none of the outlets on the circuit are working, and the breaker is resetting normally but not restoring electricity, it is probably a bad breaker.

TyrantCow

how does one replace a bad breaker?

just pop out the switch looking thing in the box?

Mushiwulf

It really depends on how comfortable you are around electricity. The first thing you do is take off the panel cover so you can see the entire breaker. The next thing is to turn off the breaker. Then you can take out the breaker and disconnect the wire going to the breaker (in either order, although I prefer to take the wire off first). Secure the wire so that it will not come into contact with any current carrying parts. If you have a spare breaker on hand, you snap it in and reconnect the wire (make sure this breaker is off too). It is pretty straightforward, generally.

Now, there are countless types of breakers, and a good many of them are obsolete, and if you have an obsolete type, this can go from very simple to moderately pain in the ass. The replacement breakers for obsolete panels go from cheap and ubiquitous to expensive and hard to find (special order).

Also, like any electrical work, this type of repair carries risk. Because you will be working on your panel, the danger is greater than most other types of home electrical work. It can be made safer by turning off the main breaker, thereby killing the power in your panel.

There are a couple of other tests you can perform to check for a bad breaker, but they all require working in the panel. New breakers for current panels run from around $3-$15, depending on a lot of factors (and can be more expensive in certain cases). If any of this sounds uncomfortable to you, an electrician would be a safe bet. I would probably bill $45-75 plus the material cost for something like that, so it is relatively cheap as well. (I know, it doesn't sound cheap, and it doesn't help that in most circumstances, a simple breaker replace takes 15-30 minutes.)

Robman

If you're really this unclear about how to proceed, calling an electrician would probably save you a lot of time, money and injury.

TyrantCow

i really like taking risks

but

i did see my dad electrocute himself once, when i was a kid

it looked, and sounded, very painful

he had a lot of things to say after that.

Mushiwulf

It hurts. And doing it in a panel is much more dangerous. Call around and get some prices. Also, for my own curiosity, what brand/type are your breakers/panel? Should be listed on the breakers (visible even with the panel cover on) and somewhere on the panel. Common types are GE, SquareD, Zinsco, PushMatic, Bryant, Siemens and a few others.

TyrantCow

GE.

Mushiwulf

GE means that, most likely, the breakers are common and fairly cheap. Lucky you!

a penguin

To clarify, the all important Step One to fucking around in the breaker box is to turn off the main breaker. It's the big one, at the top. That cuts the power to the rest of it. Just don't touch the Big Fucking Wire and you're all good. Touch that wire, and you are much less than Good.

Replacing a breaker is easy. Figure out what make/ size the breaker is. Buy new breaker. Cut power (bring a flashlight), remove breaker box cover, unscrew wire, pull out wire, remove breaker, pop in new breaker, put wire back in, screw wire down, put cover back on, turn power on, drink a beer.

Then again, this might not be your problem. It might be something else, such as a loose connection somewhere in the circuit, which isn't uncommon. Then you'd have to hunt it down and fix it.

Be smart, be safe, and you won't hurt yourself.

Roland_tHTG

Did you make sure to test all the breakers? I don't tend to trust things someone else wrote without double checking it.

Mushiwulf

Even better, thinking about it now, the fact that two of these outlets are outside indicates that they should be on a gfci circuit. That means either a GFCI breaker or outlet. Could be a GFCI outlet that is tripped and needs to be reset. They have two buttons marked test and reset, usually red and black but sometimes the same color as the outlet. See if that is the case.

TyrantCow

no, the outlets are just normal guys, i got the 'test/reset' ones in my bathrooms.

Mushiwulf

Hmm, any of your breakers GFCI then? Outside outlets and most times garage outlets are usually protected by GFCI somewhere (outlet or breaker). Another possibility is that the GFCI outlet that is feeding the garage and outside is either hidden or in some non-logical place. There are ways to narrow down the problem but they either require more work in the panel or equipment you probably don't have.

Or, like Roland suggested, these outlets are actually on another circuit that is tripped. Panel schedules, especially residential, are pretty hit or miss. Tripped breakers can sometimes be hard to distinguish from on breakers, especially if you aren't particularly looking for it. You could reset all the breakers in the panel (that will mean resetting clocks, coffee makers, microwave clocks, etc.) Or, if you haven't done it, take a closer look at the rest of the breakers.

a penguin

WIth GFCI's, sometimes there's just one upstream in the circuit. Check around to make sure there isn't one hanging around.


My house doesn't have them outside. Then again, it's 40 years old. Electrical Code? Feh! They don't build 'em like they used to!

TyrantCow

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my dad called and left me a message saying check all the light switches sometimes they control blah blah blah

i was like, "whatever, none of the switches do that." but, turned them all regardless

upon shedding more light upon the garage i notice a third outlet

clearly marked GFCI

reset.

all outlets working.

thanks guys!!!

y'all called it.

Djeet

Any chance these outlets are on a switch that has been flipped into the off position?

Edit: nevermind.

a penguin

Wooo!!! We r grate.

The best part was when noone died.

Mushiwulf

I credit Roland for jarring my brain back into gear!

TyrantCow

a penguin wrote: »

The best part was when noone died.

i was hoping for at least a spark, something to tell the kids about

like the time i turned on a UPS at work and it exploded!

okay, it didn't; but, it sure sounded like it, and i almost wet myself.