home electrical help....

[chiefs1okie]

Hopefully I can explain this correctly and someone may have an answer....

I live in a 2 story house... have seperate heat/air units for upstairs and down. Recently the overhead lights and wall recepts quit working in the kitchen (on one wall only), utlity room, and garage... upstairs heat and hot water tank works, downstairs hot water tank works, but heating unit (downstairs) is in same closet and it doesn't. The kitchen, utility room, and garage are all in line on the back side of the downstairs part of the house. I am not an electrician by any stretch of the imagination, but I have checked the fuse panel and found none of the breakers tripped. Could I have a blown fuse? If so, how do I pull them from the fuse box, or even better how do I test them before pulling to see if one is blown? Any serious help would be appreciated.... it is getting verrrrry cold downstairs!!!!

[chief52]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Keep in mind that when electricity is involved....I make Tim Taylor nervous.


I've had something similar before, to a laundry and bathroom. In my case, it was that one of the actual breakers, that you pull from the panel....was smoked.

It could be a bad breaker itself.

It very well could. A cheap tester will tell you the answer to that question. Check that there is juice coming into the breaker and then check that it is flowing past the breaker as well. If not...bad breaker. Easy, cheap fix.

My number one guess is that there is a sub panel with an open breaker and he is not aware that there is a sub panel in the house as most people are not.

Could be a major deal, but odds are that it is not.

[nstygma]

Originally Posted by kstater

Good idea, but most homes run off of single phase.

wellll, 2 phase of hot + 1 neutral to be precise. & a lil ground thrown in here and there


there's a member here named Sparkky, he's an electrician. fitting name huh? lol

[chief52]

Originally Posted by Hog Rider

You may have lost an entire phase coming in to the house. As if one of the knife switches at the utility pole is open! If you lose (sorry) - loose a ground wire things act really weird!

If one of those knife blades ( actually called cut-outs ) is open you will have a complete out at your house. You need both phases to produce 120/240 at the house.