3 circuits dead what to do

Hi last night my bedroom outlet went dead at 1am, this morning my bathroom (1 of 2) and another bedroom are dead. (lights work but not outlets)

The house is a 50's tract 100 amp but I cannot locate the main 100 amp breaker! In the bathroom I took the outlet out and replaced with GFCI but it won't launch as there is no power to the blk/wht wires.

outside, I tried to test the breaker with a voltmeter with the breaker on I tested the blk wire to the breaker and ground on the box itself. With the breaker on I get 120 volt with the breaker off zero. Is that a sufficient test to determine if the breaker is good?

If yes, any idea what to do next? I took a probe to the outlet in bedroom 2 and it is still dead.

I AM GOING TO replace bedroom 1 outlets... If you can help me out I would appreciate it....

Post edited by: dfphoto, at: 2008/06/30 22:24

Ok im with you on this...Do you have aluminum wiring on some circuits? Maybe the connections burned out? Check for receptacles on that circuit that may have "push in" terminals...I just spent 2 hours fixing my basement from those dreaded push ins... push in terminals are those little holes on the back of some receptacles that let you "push in" the wire.

I fixed it, like dumb person I didn't understand that when I tested the circuit breaker I was actually testing it meaning I put the tester on the black wire at the bottom of each circuit and grounded on the box and it showed voltage but none if the circuit was off.

I got a guy in for 50.00 to replace the breakers but he said no problems. He told me to test the wiring and see what was connected to each breaker, one circuit ran 1/2 the house's outlets and it ended up being a GFCI that wasn't really connected right because the house only had blk and wht wires no ground....

So even though the outlet (GFCI) was working it was not delivering juice to the other outlets after it. This didn't make sense to me because it was connected for 3-4 months working but whatever, I took out all the outlets to test first then the GFCI last and replaced it and then everything worked... I saved myself about 150-200.00 but it took me about 1 day in searching online and trying to figure out things...

Good learning experience but...

Post edited by: dfphoto, at: 2008/07/05 09:34

Indeed! Very good you figured it out finally. You are yet a little bit wiser about circuits and will know what to look for if (let's hope not) this will happen again

Thanks for letting us know so we get to be more informed about it as well!