# Partial Power Outage



## ianholtz (Sep 12, 2011)

Hello All, We have lost partial power in our master bathroom and a few adjacent outlets.  Odd thing is that the outlets in the bathroom work fine but the light switches won't turn the lights on in the toilet room, bathroom, vanity and closet.  I can plug in anything to the plugs though and it fires right up.  I have checked ALL the GFCI outlets in the entire house and reset them all.  I have also checked the breaker box and nothing is tripped, but I reset everything just in case.  Any ideas on what is causing this and how to fix it?
I called the power company who will come out and check their equipment as well.  Thank you for your help.


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## nealtw (Sep 12, 2011)

Hopefully you have a loose connection in one of those boxes or the last plug box that the power should be comming from.


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## gatorfan (Sep 12, 2011)

My guess is you have a bad receptacle.  To make things more difficult, it's possible that the receptacle works as an outlet but is not providing downstream power.

To test, start with the outlets that don't work, pull each out and test both sides at the terminals.  Don't forget to check your neutrals (by criss-crossing and checking both hots against both neutrals).  If none of the wires attached to the dead receptacles is hot, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and start checking working receptacles in the area.

Matt


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## ChollaBob (Sep 26, 2011)

I had lost power to half our electrical and no breakers tripped. The problem was a bad main 50 amp dual breaker which would flicker electricity on two house circuit paths (kitchen and bathroom) until it went dead, and the other side was good, but would brighten or dim. If your problem is only a room, then its probably as suggested by the previous threads. If it is more widespread, it could be one leg of the electricity, or a sub-panel breaker. I originally tried to reset GFCI outlets with no success (no power at those outlets) and it took a week to finally diagnose the problem. Bad breakers are apparently rare. With one room, also consider a bad breaker in the sub-panel, if your panel is very old, like mine, which is about thirty years old.


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