No Power to Outlets in Office and Master Bedroom

Hello all. This is my first post here, I'm at my wits end and need some help!

The other night all power to the outlets in my bedroom and office was lost. My gf was steam cleaning at the time but was on a different circuit so may not be relevant.

I checked the breaker and it was not tripped but i firmly turned it off and on. This did nothing so to be sure i turned off all breakers and all back on to no avail.

I then thought maybe a bad breaker so I removed the panel cover and grabbed my multimeter. Now the suspect breakers are two boxes with 4 switches. The outside two are bridged together with a metal clamp and the inside two are as well.

I get 120vac out of all breakers the only anomaly is on the 4 switches mentioned above the bottom two wires do not reference the same ground as the rest and only read voltage if referenced to a single screw inside the panel. Not sure if that has relevance, I hope I explained it properly.

I then thought maybe a bad outlet, however it would have to be first in the chain for all outlets to be out. I started with the one closest to panel and noticed they are wired using the push in termination rather than the screw which I've heard can cause intermittent problems.

Anyways I've replaced all 8 outlets and still no power. What have I missed? Is that ground descrepancy something to look at? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks.

 

Nothing magic in regular receptacles to go bad so usually not the problem. However it often fixes a loose connection. You did use the screws not the back stabs when you replaced the receptacles didn't you? Did you try resetting all the GFCis in and outside the house including ones hidden and forgotten behind furniture?

http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...ther-info.html

 

Welcome to the forums.

No.... your description of your testing results isn't clear.
Can you take and post a picture for us ? http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html

 

Yes I replaced the receptacles with screw terminations.

I haven't tried resetting all the GFCIs because there are none in the two rooms that are having problems. Could they still have an effect?

Unable to post pictures at the moment but I'm assuming the unclear part was about the breakers. Will post some when able.

 

A GFCI could be several rooms away, but on the same circuit. Check them all.

A former mod here always suggested mapping your circuits for easier trouble shooting in the future.
I did it for my former home and for this one. Saves a bunch of guessing.

 

Did you check for voltage at the first outlet in the circuit? If there was no voltage at the first outlet, changing the other seven down stream isn't go to correct the problem.

 

Notes: You can NOT use a non contact tester to determine if you have voltage at the receptacle. Voltage needs to be checked at the wires.

 

Thank you so much for the information on this thread. I power washed my back patio yesterday and then my porch light and plug ins on one side of my bathroom would not work. I checked the circuit breakers and none were in the off position. I tried resetting all the circuits including the main one. Still did not work. Read this thread and went on search of a GFCI. There was one in the garage. I pressed the button and it turned green. Went back to my bathroom and the plug ins were working! Still have to wait till tonight to make sure the light automatically comes in when it turns dark. I am a 63 year old widow ~ this gave me such a sense of accomplishment to figure this out!!!!