It’s Electric! Boogie Woogie Woogie.
Posted by jefferson on Apr 13, 2012 in Saving Money | 29 comments
A few weeks ago, we started having some electrical problems in my basement office. At first, all of the outlets in the room would stop working whenever anyone turned on the computer. A week later, the outlets went out completely. The problem had reached critical mass.
Working with electricity actually intimidates me a lot less than say, repairing drywall. While DIY is not my specialty, if something in my castle breaks, I am at least going to take a look at it before paying someone else. As long as the repairs don’t require any artistry, I can often get the job done. I started looking into this problem where any electrical investigation should start: the circuit breaker box.
Disclaimer: If you attempt to work with electricity, you do so at your own risk. Electricity is dangerous and can cause serious injuries or even death. If this scares you, please consult a professional. If death doesn’t scare you, consult a professional of a different kind.
The Breaker Box
The first thing that comes to mind whenever I have an electrical issue, is that a circuit breaker may have flipped. The circuit breaker box is the main distribution center for the electrical circuits in your home. In the event of an electrical surge, a single breaker can often tripped, which shuts off the flow of electricity to that circuit. Many times, an electrical issue can be fixed by simply flipping the tripped breaker off, and then back to the ON position. This will reset the breaker and allow electricity to flow into the circuit once again.
In my scenario, unfortunately, none of the breakers were tripped. I ended up flipping all of the breakers in the house off (including the main breaker @ the top), and then flipping them back on, but it had no effect on the outlets in my office. The only thing that this accomplished was forcing me to reset the time on about six digital clocks.
GFCI Outlets
Moving on from the breaker box, I headed back into the office. I noticed that while none of the 3 outlets in the room were working, the ceiling lights were bright and happy. This meant, of course, that the lights were on a different circuit. Depending on how a home is wired, it is possible that there are rooms in different parts of the house that are on the same circuit. If there was an issue with an outlet in a different room that happened to be on the same circuit as my basement office, then it could explain the issue.
The first thing to look for in this scenario is to see if a GFCI outlet may have been tripped. The special outlets, like the one in the picture above, are specially designed to protect people from electrical shock. These GFCI devices feature an interrupt button on the outlet (usually in the middle) that will get tripped if there is a major variation in current. They are often found in garages, kitchens, and especially bathrooms.
I checked all three GFCI outlets in my house, but none of them were tripped. The cause of my problem was apparently in the office itself.
Checking the Outlets
In the office, there were only a few possibilities. The wiring in the wall could have been damaged by water or a rodent or something, but we had no other evidence that either of these things had occurred. The more likely possibility was that one of the outlets was damaged. All of the outlets and switches in a circuit are daisy-chained together, and if the circuit is broken in any of those stops, then other outlets or switches could potentially stop working (like what often happens to strands of Christmas lights).
As I began looking at the outlets, I quickly noticed the one that is situated closest to the breaker box (the first stop), actually appeared to have some damage to it. This was going to require some further investigation!
Before opening up an outlet or light switch, be sure to shut off power to that circuit from the breaker box! When I was certain that all power had been cut off, I unscrewed the face-plate and pulled out the outlet. Sure enough, the outlet had signs of severe overheating and the plastic was partially melted! In what had initially seemed like a hard-luck situation, I quickly realized that my family had been very fortunate! We were extremely lucky that the issue that had caused this outlet to melt itself, didn’t cause a fire!
Powered Up
After replacing the outlet and flipping the breaker switch, all three outlets in the office began working again. My two boys who regularly use the office for both homework and playtime (Sim City and Roller Coaster Tycoon are family favorites), let out a loud cheer. But nobody was cheering louder than me, who had tracked down the issue and figured out a little DIY puzzle. Hiring an electrician to come out and look at it would have probably cost hundreds. I got it working with only having spent $5 for a replacement outlet, and surprisingly- without electrocuting myself! 
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Ugh. I hate electricity. I’d much rather give drywall a shot!
I’ve replaced a light switch but if we go beyond that there is no chance I’d try to do it. My life is worth more than a hundred or two hundred dollars.
It’s wonderful that you were able to do that! I am so scared of electricity, I probably wouldn’t have been able to calm myself enough to do it myself but kudos!
For some reason I feel like doing the electric slide right now
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I would HIGHLY recommend you call out an electrician and have this looked at. Wall sockets don’t get burned out like that unless something very unusual was going on. When you replaced the wires were they all copper colored or where any of them silver colored? If any of the wires are silver in color then you need special sockets because you may have aluminum wiring in your home.
Please get this checked out by a qualified electrician. I’m not knocking you for replacing the outlet on your own. I would have done the same thing but based on the photos you posted something isn’t right and should be investigated further.
I agree with Jason that our lives are worth more than a couple hundred, with Daisy that electricity is scary, and with Zack that we need to call a professional NOW! I am so grateful for these comments. I said all of these things to my husband, but he sometimes thinks I a) am too quick to call professionals (doctors, pest control, whatever the issue may be…) and b) don’t have any faith in his handiwork. My husband didn’t grow up in a DIY kind of family, so he wasn’t taught how to do any repairs on the house, but he’s smart and resourceful (okay…and cheap) so he tries to figure things out himself. I think he was offended when *I* mentioned calling a pro, so I’m glad other people who don’t know us agree!! He’s busy now, but I’m hoping we can talk about this later and he will give in and let me call a pro.
The house isn’t too old (~30 years), and we do have all copper wiring. Most likely scenario is that we just overloaded this outlet with too many electrical things.. (it was running a couple of different computers and monitors, as well as a printer, and some speakers at one time).. I also noticed that a couple of the wires didn’t seem to be connected correctly to the existing outlet, and i have to wonder if electrical current was just “jumping the bridge” between the connection points, which of course, melted the plastic nearby.
I am comfortable that the situation has been taken care of.. I also replaced the breaker in the circuit box, in case it wasn’t successfully tripping when a surge occurred. I am going to open back up the outlet later today to make sure that everything still looks good. I wouldn’t put my family at risk, if I wasn’t 100% confident.
That said, Michelle is still lobbying pretty hard to have someone else take a look at it.. So we will see..
Overloading the circuit should have tripped the breaker and not caused it to arc like it did. I’m not an electrician so I’ll shut up but you can bet your bottom dollar if that happened in my house I would have things double checked. Your house your decision.
Electricity scares the you-know-what out of me! You are one brave soul
Neh.. I don’t think it is as scary as it seems. Just switch off the breaker before you do any work and there is virtually no risk at all…
Well, as long as you flip the right breaker
Personally I probably wouldn’t try messing with anything electrical myself. Switching breakers is about as far I am comfortable. I’m one of those people that would have to suck it up and call a professional. Your theory about a couple of the wires not being properly connected sounds logical, especially if the circuit had a high load. If you don’t call someone to look at it, maybe you could ask about this on some electrician forum. Also, be sure to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I call the professional for many different things.. Like any plumbing pipe work that is going to require a blow torch, for example.. I am terrified of trying that myself.. But I can do very basic electric work, some light plumbing (toilets, faucets), and some basic woodwork.
That is a great idea about the electrician forum.. I just posted this on DIY reddit and will see if I can get some feedback there (if those guys don’t tear me to shreds)
Jefferson, I’m with you there. I’m much more nervous about doing the plumbing DIYs than the electrical. At least with the electric ones, you have some fairly immediate feedback if things are working or not. Not so much with the water. Things could look fine, then you can check a week later and boom, the walls are wet, mold is growing and you’ve got to move out. No thanks.
i agree with you completely, karl. i have a plumbing project that i have been putting off for months that involves replacing a saddle-valve for our fridge water-line. right now, water just trickles out, and it truly needs to be replaced. but taking on this repair will involve shutting off water to the entire house, cutting the existing pipe, and adding a new valve. of course, one will need a blowtorch to seal the new valve.
i actually don’t have a problem with any of that.. the worry is that you can’t be totally sure that the valve is sealed. once the water is back on, if there is any leak at all, it could cause major damage to anything around the valve. scary stuff.
As a blue collar guy, everything around my house is DIY. Everything. I think the way you investigated was pretty, espeically since you were careful about turning off the power BEFORE fiddilng around with outlets (I actually have a recent post about making sure electricity is OFF before walking through potentially electrified water!). Many contractors definitely will rip you off, so my professional opinion is that what you did was good; but definitely keep an eye on that outlet and the electirical situation in there. There could be a bigger problem and if that’s the case, you don’t wnat to miss it.
i am too proud for my own good. Michelle is right in saying that i really didn’t learn any DIY skills growing up, and have just figured some things out on my own. And I really don’t necessarily “enjoy” doing some kinds of DIY work. But to me, messing with electricity is really not much different than when I cable up my stereo or my TV.. it is just a bunch of wiring, and it is easy to see the logic behind it.
I have been burned by contractors in the past (see my door-to-door salesman post), and am leery of all of them.
Electrical work is one thing I won’t go near unless it’s something very simple.
That’s some good work, Jefferson! You wouldn’t catch me anywhere near that!
I’m an electrician in the UK and if I found this problem in a UK socket, I’d probably find it had something to do with the appliance plugged into it. It seems like a faulty plug shorting and increasing the temperature in the socket.
Michelle and Jeff, if you ever need major electrical work done. Give me a call. My dad is a licensed electrician and not in the union so he can do side jobs!!
Jessica! I told Jeff that yesterday, but he wanted to do this himself…*eye roll!*
I also recommend that you get the electrician to check it out. Doesn’t seem right that the plastic melted from severe overheating. A neighbour of a friend had their place burn down due to an electrical short; definitely scary! You guys might be throwing a couple hundred in the drain, but that’s not such an unreasonable expense when you consider what’s at stake. Well, just my thoughts, don’t want to scare you guys.
You are so freaking brave. When we moved into our new apartment. My fiance ended up changing all of the outlets and doing some rewiring. I was totally afraid he was going to kill himself, but he is very careful, methodical and patient–so things went well.
Still, if I lived alone, I wouldn’t have even bothered tinkering around with those currents. It’s important to know your strengths, it’s even more important to know your weaknesses.
My husband will do about anything except mess with electricity. And I am glad, that is one DIY project that scares me to death.
oh.. its not that scary. if you shut things off at the circuit breaker box, there is no chance at all that you’ll get hurt.
I am a DIY fanatic. so far I have fixed almost all electricity problem at home. Except a problems with appliances. Its risky no doubt but, if you know the thing, you can save money and hassle.
I have been picking up more and more DIY skills over the years.. I am by no means an expert in ANYTHING.. but it is a life long process.
Congratulations on sorting out the problem yourself. I’m not particularly handy, but it’s a great feeling of reward when you can figure something out on your own.
Electricity is probably my weakest area, but I’m a bit concerned for you: Why did that outlet heat up and nearly catch fire? Have you gotten to the root of the issue, or repaired a symptom?
all mechanical parts can and eventually will malfunction, and it all appearances point to the outlet being the single point of failure in my scenario.
i checked the other outlets in the room, and there are no problems, and we haven’t had any other electrical issues anywhere in the home. i also pulled out the new outlet the other night, after running a computer & monitor on it for a couple of days, and there were no signs of any issues.
i believe that michelle is still going to have someone with an electrical background come out and take a look, but i am very confident that all is well.
Great work. I will mess with electrical as long as it is not in the box. Once it is in the box that is where the professionals are called in, well actually my dad who is an electrician. I tackle most DIY. I have done everything now, changed a toilet, remodeled and finished off our porch, installed windows. I love the looks I get at work when I tell them I fix things as well, they think because I wear a shirt and tie I am useless when it comes to DIY.
I think its is fine to do electric repair DIY till one follows the safety measures.But if its slightly complicated (as mentioned by Chris)it would be a better decision to involve the professionals.
Usually what goes wrong in DIY tasks is that we are not aware of worst case scenarios. We jump into it feeling that it can be managed but ultimately end up creating a mess! So when stakes are high and we are not sure of what we are doing – better call the professionals