Renovating my basement from scratch. I have one room with three chained outlets. When I turn the breaker to the room it throws every time, even when the outlets are disconnected. I'm worried a drywall screw punctured a wire. Anyone have tips on how to troubleshoot this?
Posted Mar 26, 2015, 11:03 PM UTC
Start with the outlet furthest from the breaker. Check that the connections are correct. Move one outlet closer to the breaker and inspect again. Disconnect the wires for the downstream outlet and test the breaker. Repeat until you find the damaged wiring.
There is a short, other posters have gotten it right on how to track it down. Be aware they circuit breakers don't last forever though. The more times you snap it the more wear and our will stop working eventually and trip very easy.
On the off chance of saving you a lot of hassle, is it a new breaker? If so, I'm assuming that it is for a bedroom judging by the number of outlets, and your username suggests you're from Alberta, where AFCI's are required for bedrooms. If that's all accurate, you have to turn the breaker to the fully "off" position before turning it "on". Also, bedrooms are required to have an outlet not be more than 6' from any wall space (in other words, 12' minimum), so you may have to add more.
I think you mean outlets spaced every 12' minimum so any space on the wall is no more than 6' from an outlet.
You should test the breaker first. Swap it with another one (of the equal capacity) on the panel, then try both breakers from their new positions.
Sounds to me like you have the right idea. If you disconnected all of the receptacles and the breaker is still tripping then chances are you have a screw shorting the wires. It's true as others have suggested that the breaker is the potential problem, but in my experience I tend to lean more toward Occam's razor. I assume that everything was working before you began your renovation, so it would be very coincidental for the breaker to go bad and be the cause of your problem, rather than a drywall screw in my opinion. None the less it would be much easier to swap it out with one of your other breakers of the same rating just to test it. I'm not sure how far in you are in regard to your drywall instillation, but if at all possible I would pull the most likely panel and take a look. Since you said you were doing it from scratch I would imagine that you have some idea of which way the wire is routed, and hopefully you are able to find and fix the issue without too much time invested in working backwards. Best of luck to you friend.
Do you use any outlet timers?
Check the wires by removing all outlets in the circuit. Then test each run as follows:
To test each run of wire attach a pig tail light to the first load and hot wire in the first plug. Flip the breaker, if it turns on and doesn't trip, that run is fine (eg panel to plug # 1)
Next step, pig tail a light in box # 2, then flip on the breaker. If the pig tail turns on, then the first two runs are fine.
If all 3 are working, consider measuring the voltage at each box to look for a short. If it's all normal, then maybe you got a poopy outlet? Otherwise if your using an arc fault breaker it could be bad. When I did my base,ent I had to replace one of my arc fault breakers
Cut the wire shorter and shorter until the problem goes away. Then replace the cut wire and the breaker. I am not an electrician.