Electricians please help, overhead lights stopped working but outlets are still work

[Vigilante]

Just as the title says, in one half of the house all the lights stopped working. The outside lights, kitchen(and microwave), living room and the can lights above my counter tops all have no power. But the outlets in each of those rooms still work along with the fridge, stove and dishwasher that never lost power.

I flipped all the circuit breakers and that didn't help. I have no idea what to do, so I called an electrician for a free estimate. Although if it's ton of money I guess I could learn to love candles, but I'd rather fix it myself if I can. Any ideas would be great!

 

[geardriven74]

Im not an electrician, but I would check the wires for power on both sides of each outlet. Have you got a multimeter?

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

Sounds like you lost a leg of power coming into the house? Everyone has 2 legs of 120vac power supplied into their homes. It's possible the issue lies outside the house, call the power company and tell them what's happening. If you have an electrical meter it would take only a minute to determine if this is the issue. Power company will come out for free, the electrician will charge you for the service call even if it's the power companies issue.

 

[ff500]

I agree with above. Check with neighbors, see if they are experiencing the same problem.

 

[kmadona]

Check for a tripped GFI outlet.

 

[canadianbullitt]

Sounds like you lost a leg of power coming into the house? Everyone has 2 legs of 120vac power supplied into their homes. It's possible the issue lies outside the house, call the power company and tell them what's happening. If you have an electrical meter it would take only a minute to determine if this is the issue. Power company will come out for free, the electrician will charge you for the service call even if it's the power companies issue.

I disagree since he said the stove still works. The stove will run on 240vac and since you needs two hot 120vac wires to achieve that, there is no way for one "leg" to be out. You could have a disconnected neutral that is shared among all the loads that are not working. If you really need to do this yourself (I suggest you call a competent electrician) CAEFULLY open the panel and make sure all the white wires are tightened down onto the neutral bar.
I suggest you call someone though haha

 

[Robert Francis]

One time I had a circuit breaker box that one leg ceased to conduct current. Every breaker on that side had no current. But I still had 220 to the dryer and stove.

 

[ff500]

He didn't specify if stove is gas or electric.

 

[PSUCOBRA96]

Check for a tripped GFI outlet.

this, heck I had one go out in my garage and knocked power out in the weirdest of places and took me 3 hours to figure it out.

 

[mcallister]

I wouldn't suggest playing with electricity unless you know what your doing. Leave it to the professionals.

 

[92hatchlx]

Can you post a diagram of the wiring to your house?

 

[coposrv]

Is the house old enough to have any knob and tube? Are any of the currently working lights flickering or getting brighter? May be a loose or compromised neutral. Be careful. Better to pay us than try to fix it your self and make our job even harder.

 

[coposrv]

Oh and check and reset all GFCI's

 

[scottg]

I am an electrician and it sounds like a gfci is faulted or a breaker is tripped or went bad. A lot of times the lighting circuits are not tied in with the receptacles so don't get confused with that. Your breaker box should be labelled so look for the lighting circuits and check the voltage coming out of the breaker, if you're skilled enough.

 

[Junior00]

Have a sub panel that you don't know about somewhere:shrug::rolling: Check the panel first to ascertain whether you have power to all circuits. After that, do like others have suggested and test/reset all ground fault circuits. I didn't notice but is it localized to one room or general area? If your lighting is on a separate circuit as your outlets (should be), perhaps you have a bad receptacle. Start from the top and work your way down, taking time not to electrocute yourself and I'm sure you can figure it out.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

I disagree since he said the stove still works. The stove will run on 240vac and since you needs two hot 120vac wires to achieve that, there is no way for one "leg" to be out. You could have a disconnected neutral that is shared among all the loads that are not working. If you really need to do this yourself (I suggest you call a competent electrician) CAEFULLY open the panel and make sure all the white wires are tightened down onto the neutral bar.
I suggest you call someone though haha

Oh, I didn't catch that, you're right, it takes both legs to run 240 appliances. In that case I'm going with GFI circuit gone bad.

 

[Vigilante]

I had the electrician come out and he took one look and said it was a loose wire, screwed it down and that was that. He said by flipping all the breakers that's what caused it to fall out. Sucks that it was $100 for tightening a screw, but at least he got it working.

PS Junior00 was also correct, the loose wire was in a sub panel I didn't know about.

PPS The breakers were labeled wrong as well, don't know why I didn't tug on the wires to find it myself.

 

[Junior00]

I had the electrician come out and he took one look and said it was a loose wire, screwed it down and that was that. He said by flipping all the breakers that's what caused it to fall out. Sucks that it was $100 for tightening a screw, but at least he got it working.

PS Junior00 was also correct, the loose wire was in a sub panel I didn't know about.

PPS The breakers were labeled wrong as well, don't know why I didn't tug on the wires to find it myself.

:beer:Glad to hear bud. I'm not a licensed electrician but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express the night before last:burnout: So did they cover up the sub panel in some obscure place for you not to know about it? Hopefully it wasn't a hack job and you have more troubles down the road but at least you know what you have and can trace it down yourself from here on out.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

Case closed.