Dead circuit

14 years ago

While trimming hedges using an electrical trimmer, I cut the wire that runs the trimmer. The trimmer was running off an outlet on an outside wall of the house. Now this outlet, plus one on another wall of the house, together with the outlet inside the garage, are all dead. I looked at the electrical panel, there is no breaker that was on "Off" position. I do not know which breaker was responsible for that circuit. The panel was clearly marked with stickers like "AC", "living room", but I do not see any sticker for "outside circuit". The only one that seems suspicious is "GCFI". But this is also on "On" position, I tried switch that off then on, still get no electricity from the outside/garage outlets. How do I trouble shoot? DO I need to replace the "GCFI" breaker? Thanks!

Comments (4)

stash-hdy
14 years ago
Those outlets are most likely on another GFCI located in the garage or House. Check any GFCI outlets located in the baths or the Garage to see if they are tripped.
joed
14 years ago
GFCI is tripped. Look in bathrooms, garage, other outside receptacles, basement.
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jblake
Original Author
14 years ago
You are both right! An outlet in the garage has GFCI and after pressing the reset button I got power back for the outside outlets! Who would have thought it would work this way (like serial instead of parallel). Thanks!
mike_kaiser_gw
14 years ago
They aren't hooked up in "series" but rather one [more expensive] GFCI feeds several [less expensive] receptacles downstream. It's a pretty common way of doing things.

When GFCIs were first introduced and really expensive it wasn't uncommon to find one, say, in the garage, also feeding the bathrooms inside the house. A little inconvenient if you happen to trip one while drying of your hair. :-)