Lights and Plugs Not Working in some parts of house.

[bobcat1995 71]

So my son calls while I'm out running errands and says the plugs in his room (upstairs) stopped working.  I ask him to check GFI outlet in his bathroom and he says the light is not on.  I get home to find the garage door won't open.  Upon further inspection the lights in the garage work, the plugs do not.  The lights in the kitchen, living room and dining room do not work but the plugs do work.  There are other rooms where the lights work do not work but the plugs do work.  I check the breaker box and none of the breakers are tripped.  I still go through and flip them all on and off.  Still nothing works.  The fridge and oven are working.

Thoughts?  

[XYZ 2154]

Ghosts?

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

You could have a corrupted main line in to your home. We had that happen 2x.

Once we had a guy, (not gonna name names here) excavate a set of rear yard steps. He knicked the cable sheathing, and half the circuits in the house went out a couple weeks later after a couple good rains.  

The second time lightening struck a tree, ran down to the ground, and along an irrigation buried line right next to the tree, that happened to run just above the main cable. It burned thru the sheathing at that crossing /intersection and half the circuits in the house went out.

Those main cables are large gauge aluminum by the way.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Onboard 2.0

[Assman 1830]

Are all the working circuits on a certain side of the breaker box?

[bobcat1995 71]

All the ones not working appear to be on one side of the breaker box but there are rooms on that same side that are working.  About to head to the store and pick up a new voltage meter, mine is missing a cable.  

  

[Assman 1830]

I'm not an electrician, but here are my two guesses:  bad bus or one of your main power wires disconnected from a bus.

[Radical Larry 28819]

If you have to rewire, are you gonna make it all 220?

[deadshank 24654]

Stand with one foot in a bucket of water when testing each plug with a fork. 

[bobcat1995 71]

So i call a friend who says to turn the dryer on to see if I am getting enough power to the dryer.  Tuen the dryer on and the lights in the house come back on, turn dryer off and the lights go dark.

 

[bobcat1995 71]

The Interent says I possibly "lost a leg", called Oncor and waiting for them to come out.

 

 

 

[bobcat1995 71]

Oncor came to house, lost leg at the box in ground.  They were able to fix without having to call another crew who fixes stuff

 

[RPM 26614]

11 hours ago, Radical Larry said:

If you have to rewire, are you gonna make it all 220?

[Judge Roybeanbag 11860]

You should have 2 breaker boxes.  One inside and one out.   Check both if you haven’t already.  Never mind see you fixed it.  

Edited October 28, 2018 by Judge Roybeanbag

[Gil Bang 26230]

On 10/28/2018 at 10:59 AM, Judge Roybeanbag said:

You should have 2 breaker boxes.  One inside and one out.   Check both if you haven’t already.  Never mind see you fixed it.  

Not necessarily.  Some homes have sub-panels, some don't.  

[SHOOTER12 8886]

This thread brings memories and lulz.

Right after my most recent surgery we had pretty much the same problem except the only light that went out was in the shower.  It happened once previously years before, and the only thing I remembered was there was something "weird" about resetting it.  The weird thing is that it was run through a GFI that was in the bedroom nowhere near a water or moisture source.  So I went room to room testing and resetting every GFI we had.  Needless to say none of that worked.

Next, I check the breaker box and tripped the master GFI in there.  Well, Mrs. Shooter comes in raising hell wanting to know what I was doing to make all the lights go on and off yadayadayada, to leave it alone.   So I get pissed and think to myself, "I hope you like showering in the dark because I'm leaving it off til hell freezes over".

Last week, the lights in the downstairs bathroom tripped a breaker, so I went in and reset it and noticed that the whirlpool breaker (partially hidden behind cabinet) was tripped so I reset it and check the master shower...yep, working again.  So I left the light on in the shower and didn't say a word.  Wife goes in to use the bathroom and comes out and says "the shower light's working again, what did you do"?  Me:  nothing, what are you talking about? Mrs: Nevermind.

So, for the last week I've sneakily gone back and forth turning the breaker on and off.  On when I'm using shower, and off again when I'm done, all the while acting like I don't what she is talking about with the "well it was on, and then it was off again stuff".  When I get home tomorrow I'll turn it back on and confess I guess.

P.S. Turned out the reason she raised hell about me messing with it the first time is she was afraid I'd pull stitches or staples loose crawling, climbing and reaching as the breaker box is hell to get to.