20 Years Suddenly No Power In One Room.

if its an older house, which I suspect, one does not know what kind of weekend warrior project went on before you move into this house.

Is there yet another breaker in series to this room?

There is only one breaker switch connected to that line.

pull the outlet, its cooked

Or the connection box hidden somewhere in the wall, ceiling or under the floor, or the outlet connection from which it has been daisy-chained.....It could also be that at the previous connection or that outlet the wire was not clamped correctly when new and has now built up sufficient oxidation due to the hot-spot that the connection is marginal.

If you are not trained and familiar with working with mains power, call an electrician.... your life is more valuable than the call-out fee!

Aliens have invaded your wiring. They've sucked out all of your voltage for their own needs. There is no help for you. Get out while you can.

Oh, my god!! They're after me, too. I have to

WHAT? you have to What?..... Oh no, someone call 911

Whew. That was close. I did get a picture of the little invaders.

You never know when or where one of these guys will effect your wires.

I hope this is not the case ( my worst case scenario) I don't think it is; i have never seen any signs of mice around the home. I will take a quick look in the attic however to confirm.

I've seen this several times now. Low voltage on what was a good circuit is probably mice. Especially in walls near water and food.

these do fail after a few centuries.......break down and call a pro

Ha ha. I was hoping that was the problem. But only three outlets on that line is effected. The rest is fine. Do u still think it can be the breaker. Wouldn't all the wiring be effected if the problem started at the breaker?

no joke.........verify power at the breaker first(with a meter),,pull the outlet and do the same

Then you probably have a bad connection in the first outlet, if these are piggybacked...

Aliens, yes. But not the kind you are thinking, they are the ones with teeth. Install a new outlet (cheap). If that does not fix the problem, then have a real electrician take a look at the branch wiring to see if damaged somehow, and have it fixed by a professional. If you are a professional, then why are you asking?

You might have just one wire disconnected; the power to your outlets most likely is located at the bedroom light electrical box on the ceiling, and distributes from there.

Shut down the mains, open that box, strip and re-do all connections and insulate properly. Pay special attention to charred wires and black corroded screws.

be careful if you tackle this one on your own!

"Shut down the mains, open that box, strip and re-do all conn..."

I have run across this before and have found that usually a loose or poor neutral connection somewhere in the circuit is the culprit. Have found it in both household(220/110V0 and industrial(600 V) cases.

Aluminum wiring as mentioned elsewhere can also be a problem if the wire connections oxidize.

I was about to write the same thing, then I saw your post. I found my bad neutral at night after weeks of trying. I was in the roof space and my torch went out and then I saw a blue glow next to me. It turned out to be a connector that had a bunch of neutral wires bound together. The next daylight inspection showed that all the wires were oxidized. Some were clearly carrying full current but the one/s that weren't gave these same symptoms. I then went around the whole house cleaning all terminations.

Another time, I had reason to pull a fuse ( old ceramic style ) and as soon as I touched the fuse holder I heard my fingers sizzle just before I felt the pain. The brass parts of the fuse assembly had oxidation similar to the neutral wires; this illustrated to me the temperatures that can be reached by bad/oxidised connections.

Jim

Well for one thing you have too much stuff on one breaker.. The breaker has probably failed due to overheating......just switch the wires to another breaker, if it works then you know it's definite....Either that or main breaker has a bad connection...check with multi-tester for full voltage on bus bars...Try reset the main breaker...

It most likely is a high resistance connection somewhere in the wiring.

It could be out on the power pole just off the transformer, or at the top of the riser just above the disconnect on the building.

It could also be in any place where the wiring has been spliced.

I would go to the distribution panel and measure the voltage on the main incoming terminals to determine where to go next.

If the power is bad at the incoming terminals the utility company is responsible.

If the incoming power is ok, I would attach a meter to the load side of the breaker and if the power is ok there I would then go to the affected room and turn on lighting only then check the meter again at the breaker.

If the power is ok when the circuit is loaded, you will have to work your way from the incoming power panel through all oft the boxes to the room.

Hopefulyy you do not have aluminum wiring.

One other point:

If the incoming power is ok at the main panel, I would power down the main, pull the cover, verify the busses are dead, then pull the breaker in question and inspect the bus-to-breaker connection.

Most home circuit breakers are pressure type "push-in" and it is very common for the breaker bus contacts to lose their spring tension.

If the bus is black and/or flaking, the bus must be thoroughly cleaned and a new breaker installed.

If the heating damage has spread to adjacent positions you should replace any/all breakers affected and make sure the bus is clean.

If you are not experienced with/at doing this, I would hire a competent electrician and observe carefully.

Good dluck and stay safe.

One added point:

It is difficult enough trying to troubleshoot remotely a problem when the OP provides little to no information. When the OP helps us and themselves by providing follow up information, then we should incorporate that information in our answers.

The breaker may be a problem but they are not this problem.

I agree. I have posted all that I know at this point. Thank you all for the informative and some humerus responses. I will post more feedback once I get home to try some of the suggestions. Thanks again.

You are very welcome.

You do show a sound understanding of house wiring. I look forward to you successfully finding your problem and giving us an update.

Be safe.

Welcome to the madhouse.

There is a loose connection caused by either a screw that is not tight, a fixture that is damaged, a cable that is damaged, or some combination of them. If in doubt, consult a qualified Electrician.

Some homes from the 60's thru the 70's were wired with aluminum wire. It was inclined to fail do to several issues. I home your home was not one that was ran in aluminum.

They make circuit tracers. You would lose signal strength beyond the loose connection. Even those tester for seeing if the circuit is hot may work. Placing it in a dead receptacle may get it close enough to the bad connection to pick up a good voltage.

Quite possibly a worthless comment but since there isn't much information provided I'll make it anyway.

Assuming that you are in the United States (key issue: houses get 2 lines of 117 VAC that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other):

1) Are both phases good coming into the house?

2) Is neutral good? With a broken neutral you might be measuring voltage between hot and the leakage to ground. Also, if neutral is open the voltages in the house could go up in some areas (dangerous) and down in other areas as loads change. This happened at a neighbor's house. The power company gave them a lot of nonsense until I informed the power company that the fire trucks were still at the house. Grounding neutral at the service entrance would have prevented this but older Florida houses can be a little too interesting.

3) Lots of good suggestions already given by others.

The outlets are daisy chained from one to the other. Most tract houses used push to connect boxes, both lights and outlets.

Start one outlet "upstream" of the bad one and check the connections. If you find a bad one, then re-do them all.

...and if you find aluminum or copper-clad aluminum wire (as Shockiscan commented earlier), then be prepared to rewire the whole place.

It might save you a lot of time if you buy a cheap infrared thermometer and scan every outlet/switch/fixture for any temperature more than a few degrees above ambient. The ones with poor connections are easy to spot, especially if you put a heavy load like a hair dryer or space heater in the last outlet in the chain and work your way back to the breaker panel.

Your problem is probably a poor connection that has gotten worse as time went on.

Only if you are familiar with electricity and the cautions of working with it, check in this order or something similar to it.

1st- turn off the breaker. Place a load, such as a 100 watt bulb into one of the good outlets. Turn the breaker back on and measure the voltage from the outlet of the CB to the white bank of wires. If the voltage fluctuates you have a bad contact between the panel buss bar that the CB is attached to and the CB. This is more prevalent on panels with aluminum buss bars. To correct this shut the panel down and place some no-lox or similar electrical anti-oxidant on the busses and the CB input contacts.

2nd- With the CB on go to each duplex outlet with a volt meter. In one outlet put you volt meter wires in it. While measuring the voltage plug your light/load in. If there is less than a one or two volt reduction it is a good duplex with good terminals/wire nuts from the CB. Any more than that and wire contacts of either the wire nuts and the screw terminal or push in contacts are bad. If so replace the duplex and cut an inch or two off the wire(s), strip the insulation and dress up the exposed wire with fine emery cloth. Reassemble and try again. If good, pat yourself on the back. If bad swear and start at any other duplex on the circuit.

3rd- To locate where the bad contact is repeat this at every duplex. Also it is a good idea to change any back spring connections to the side mounted screws on the duplex. When you have checked every duplex and it still happens at one or more, after checking the outlet with and without the load, recheck and clean every wire connection and check the correctness of the screw/wire contacts.

4th- After cleaning all contacts and it still does it at some outlets, there is a bad contact/connection in a wires junction in a wall, in the basement or attic. Junctions in walls with no access are illegal. Trace the wires down and find any junction boxes in the attic and basement. Do the same checking/cleaning of wire joints in them.

5th- Here is the most important part-- If all this fails it is time to contact a professional licensed electrician. Don't mess around with something such as electricity that is beyond your skills and knowledge. A "I think I can do it" attitude could be the start of a suicide result!

Good Luck, Old Salt

I feel that there is some problem in the cable. It might be copper conductor has some internal breakages due to which there is drop in voltage. Please check with new cable if it is possible.

Mystery solved! Thanks to all for the great input. It helped steer me in the right direction. I found a loose wire (back stabbed) in an outlet in the adjoining room which fed the outlets in the room that was effected. Great learning experience. I appreciate the knowledgable folks that took the time to respond so quickly. This is a great site.

Glad you found the root of the problem and that it wasn't an "alien" invader. Once I found that part of my house wiring used the "back stabbed" wiring that so easily fails over time, I systematically opened every outlet and repaired or replaced the old outlets. These poor connections can become a fire starter.

Well done, I am glad it is fixed and that you are safe.

It sounds like one neutral on that circuit has come loose. It could be any of them. Many circuits use plug-in neutral wires, which can work loose. It does not take long to check this out.