Household Electrical Issue

[WCrane]

So I am beating my head against the wall here gang. Maybe someone with the proper background can help or at least point me in the right direction before I give up and call an electrician.

So here it is: Live in a townhouse. On the back side of the house we have a deck and a walk out patio below. On the deck their is a light and an outdoor receptacle. On the patio their is the same (light and recp. below it). both have switches inside the slider door.

The issue - The Deck recp. basement patio light (and switch), and basement patio recp. all quit working after some rain. Has happened in the past a few times but always comes back on, sometimes on its own sometime when I reset the GFCI. This time it has been a few days. It is a issue some of my neighbors said they deal with from time to time as well.

All my GFCIs in the house are fine. They have power on the line and load side. There are no apparent issues with any of the breakers. (I don't have the stones to open the breaker box). I've check most Recps in the house which I assume are on the line, but everything in and out that I have check so far are working normal. I have a few more to check.

I know without looking at my house or pictures its hard to solve. but here is some more info

The Deck light works and the deck light switch works fine. The Switch for the deck light has three cables in the box. One for the light, one coming in and one sending out farther down the line (I assume). All three hot wires have juice.

- The Deck ecp. has two wires in the box, BUT neither hot wire has juice. I assume from the deck the wire travels down to the patio below. I replaced this recp with a new outdoor (non-gfci) one.

- I've replace the basement patio recp a few years back, but have a new one I can install.

-I've check all the connection on this line on things and all tightly twisted under the cap, no signs of corrosion or burning.

I'm not 100% sure that that one of the lines leaving the deck light switch feeds the deck recp. because the Deck recp has now power in either line entering the box.

I'd prefer to fix myself because I know I can, I just don't know where to look now.

I do have a multi-meter, and wire tester, but am unsure how to do a continuity test on the line. I'm thinking its is a loose neutral or that the basement patio recp went bad cause the issues up the line.

Any discussion would be greatly appreciated.

 

[zeptrey]

So did you replace the bad recp closest to the breaker on that line?

 

[WCrane]

So did you replace the bad recp closest to the breaker on that line?

Thakns for the question Zep.

I've checked several outlets that I think are on the same line, but haven't found and issues as on yet and still have several more to check. All lines out of the break box are fine. I've tried to backtrack from the Deck Recp, but haven't found issue yet.

From what I can see the wires from the box in the basement , to the middle of the basement, then up to the space between the 1st and 2nd floor. I assume it run thru that space then down to the Recp. With the Deck light and switch having full power, I think I can rule out that these are tied to the same series.

I still need to replace the basement recp this evening. I have rewired the Patio light as well.

 

[azazel1024]

You'll need to check all outlets. My bet is a GFCI up stream from the outdoor outlet tripped (if it goes bad, 99.99% of the time it goes bad in the functional/closed position, not open/tripped).

Any laundry room with GFCI.

Also re-replace the outdoor outlet with a GFCI. It is both required by code and by common sense. Anywhere you might have damp or wet conditions you need GFCI protection for safety.

Also if they are occasionally tripping outside, you need to fix the issue. That means they are grounding out from water infiltrating the wiring/boxes. Are the outlets covered? If not, they NEED to be with an outdoor box cover.

I had a devil of a time chasing down an open line with my bathrooms not working. As it turned out, the GFCI outlet by my utility sink in my basement had tripped because my wife splashed it with water when cleaning off some paint rollers one day. Took me 2hrs to figure it out because A) I didn't realize that outlet was on the same circuit as all bathroom outlets in my house B) It is stuck behind the dry vent hose, so it is pretty well hidden.

 

[WCrane]

You'll need to check all outlets. My bet is a GFCI up stream from the outdoor outlet tripped (if it goes bad, 99.99% of the time it goes bad in the functional/closed position, not open/tripped).

Thanks Azazel. I'll look to replace those outside ones with GFCI one. All have covers and are also caulked up since I have a stucco ext.

I've check all known GFCIs - One in the powder room on 1st One in Master Bath on 2nd and one in basement by the box. Those are all of the ones I am aware of in the house. Now I do know the load side of the one in the master bath feeds the Powder room cause when I trip it is shuts that one off. I did replace the GFCI in the powder room.

All have juice on the Line and Load side. I will double check them though.

Keep the ideas coming. I'm making a checklist.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I've done a ton of electrical troubleshooting and re-wiring in my house the last 2+ years. I would second the other posts about replacing outdoor outlets with GFCI outlets, also look into covering. If this happens when it rains then your getting water into your circuit somewhere.

I spent a while in my place trying to figure out what breaker powers certain things since one circuit had a bunch of aluminum wire in it and things were otherwise all messed up. I just started tracing the power back to the main feed by disconnecting the feed power from an outlet here or there somewhere in the circuit, then seeing what didn't work anymore. If you do this enough you can map the wiring and then you should be able to figure out what's going on.

Good luck!

 

[WCrane]

Found the issue and fixed it.

Stemmed from a bad connection in our 2nd floor guest bath. Wire must travel up from 1st powder room GFCI to the bathroom above, then to outside. Going to pick up a outdoor GFCI this week to install.

Thanks to those who chimed as it helped me think things through.