trying to find a residential electrician in Columbia County GA

[oldfella1962]

Okay I have two outlets on the outside of my house - one near my front door, one near my back. Both are dead, but no breakers are tripped. Maybe a wire came off a breaker in the main panel, I don't know. Regardless just for safety and insurance coverage reasons I'd like to hire a certified electrician. Well I found one online a few minutes from my house - he never showed up at the agreed upon date/time. He never called to tell me why he wasn't showing up.

If anyone can recommend a dependable electrician in Columbia County (adjacent to Augusta) please help me out.

 

[dixiecutter]

Find your GFCI recepticles and hit the reset button

 

[Milkman]

What he said above. It could be one of the outlets you mentioned or even one inside.
They look like this.

 

[oldfella1962]

What he said above. It could be one of the outlets you mentioned or even one inside.
They look like this. View attachment 1090007

great - I'll try this right now.

 

[oldfella1962]

tried resetting all GFCI receptacles - no change. I think I'll turn off the main breaker to the house, take the cover off my circuit breaker panel and see if a wire came off a breaker or something. If not, I'll check the actual breakers with my multimeter to see if they are good. So why check all the breakers? Because when the electricians who wired up the house before I bought it labeled my circuit breakers it was in cursive and you can't read half of them.

 

[Milkman]

FYI, GFCI outlets as discussed above are typically in kitchens, restrooms, and outside or under a house.

Do some breakers have a yellow button like this? If so try resetting them first.

 

[oldfella1962]

I reset every outlet and breaker - still no power at the dead outlets. No more wiring continuity testing until tomorrow morning when it's cooler. I don't want to be killing my main power while we still need the AC going. My next step is taking the wire running from the dead outlets to the breaker I think is bad and putting the wire into a known good circuit breaker (of the same style & amperage rating) and that way I can know for sure if I have a bad breaker. If that's the problem it's a quick visit to Home Depot to fix that. I'm an electronic tech (military avionics and whatnot) by trade so basic troubleshooting & safety should still apply to my home wiring.

 

[dixiecutter]

You'll be lucky if home depot has a breaker. Late model houses sometimes has the gfci's hidden. My house has them in the closets, one under the whirlpool tub, and one in the garage.

Best bet is a loose connection (wirenut) in the recepticle/switch boxes where they made up pigtails, or a loose screw on one of the recepticles where they shunted that circuit through the recepticle.


Least likely but possible is bad outlets that are still getting 120v, or a broke/cut/chewed wire in any old random place, or bad breaker. Bad breakers happen on household loadcenters but not much

 

[oldfella1962]

You'll be lucky if home depot has a breaker. Late model houses sometimes has the gfci's hidden. My house has them in the closets, one under the whirlpool tub, and one in the garage.

Best bet is a loose connection (wirenut) in the recepticle/switch boxes where they made up pigtails, or a loose screw on one of the recepticles where they shunted that circuit through the recepticle.


Least likely but possible is bad outlets that are still getting 120v, or a broke/cut/chewed wire in any old random place, or bad breaker. Bad breakers happen on household loadcenters but not much

I'll search for more hidden GFCI's. A loose connection on one of the outlets where it attaches to the other outlet might make sense. I doubt if it's a bad outlet because what are the odds that both outlets on opposite sides of the house would go out at the same time? So today I can search for GFCI's and tomorrow I can kill the main power and check out the receptacles for loose wires. I have ran across this before in houses my son was renting.

 

[oldfella1962]

FOUND THE PROBLEM! Yes it was a GFCI built into an outlet in my garage (see pic). No bright colors, all white lettering so it's something I never noticed before. Only a dim orange glow tipped me off to the rarely used outlet that was tripped. I hit the reset and went outside to try out both outlets and they work fine. That saved me some serious money - good thing the electrician never did show up! Thanks a lot for the advice everyone.

 

[LTZ25]

Got to say to electricians when you label the panel take time to use printed stickers that can be read in 10 years .

 

[oldfella1962]

Got to say to electricians when you label the panel take time to use printed stickers that can be read in 10 years .

my breaker labels couldn't be read ten seconds after they were put on! Like I said they are labeled in sloppy cursive. Some examples are:

BAREFOOT OMELET
RISENJOLT
RED ROULETTE

 

[Wire Nut]

We have our own written language not meant to be read by homeowners

 

[JustUs4All]

Poor handwriting can cover a multitude of sins. LOL

 

[oldfella1962]

We have our own written language not meant to be read by homeowners

I don't doubt you. The WWII Navajo code talkers got nothin' on you!

 

[jiminbogart]

FOUND THE PROBLEM! Yes it was a GFCI built into an outlet in my garage (see pic). No bright colors, all white lettering so it's something I never noticed before. Only a dim orange glow tipped me off to the rarely used outlet that was tripped. I hit the reset and went outside to try out both outlets and they work fine. That saved me some serious money - good thing the electrician never did show up! Thanks a lot for the advice everyone.

I hate the GFI Easter Egg hunt. I didn't use GFI receptacles for that reason. Went with the GFI(& AF combo) breakers.