Home Electric Issues

[vossman]

Lower 2 rooms of my house are having electrical issues. I am losing power/lights to the two intermittently. Sometimes its both rooms, sometime only one room. I cannot predict it or recreate it on demand.
- One breaker covers the two rooms but the breaker has only tripped once when my wife turned on her portable heater. Manually tripping it and resetting will not fix the power loss.
- Both rooms burn out bulbs frequently (3-4 bulbs a year) when turning on the lights
- Usually the power loss happens in both rooms but recently it only happened in one entire room and 2 of 5 outlets in the other room. I still cant get it to turn on.
- I have unplugged everything then reset the breaker but no luck.
I'm kind of outta ideas as I am not electrically smart, any ideas will be gladly accepted.

[SideShow Bob]

How old / new is your house ? You most likely have a loose connection at the first point of tap after the bereaker where it splits to feed both rooms. And it is possible the electrician that wired your house took short cuts by using the wire stab ins instead of pig tailing and using the side screws at each devise.
The wire could be loose at the breaker, but both rooms would be out.

[vossman]

House is 10 yrs old, we have been in it for 5 (second owners).
How hard is it to find these wiring boxes where they split? I could fix the loose connection if I could find it.
I assume no reason to replace the breaker, it wobbles a bit in the breaker box but the 2 breakers above it do too.

[buffalobo]

Need to check connections at switches, outlets and any pigtails in the switch/outlet boxes.

[SideShow Bob]

Need to check connections at switches, outlets and any pigtails in the switch/outlet boxes.

Dont forget the boxes above the light fixtures.

[buffalobo]

Dont forget the boxes above the light fixtures.

^this, all equip/fixtures on the circuit should be checked.

[vossman]

OK, so turn off the main breaker and unscrew the fixtures and outlets and check them individually. Then make sure the wires are tight and replace fixture then see if that makes a difference. I can do that.

[SideShow Bob]

You don't need to shut off the main breaker, uless you just want the whole house dead.
Shut off the breaker for that circuit, check with a meter at the breaker where the wire goes in if no voltage, tighten the screw.
go to the rooms and check each outlet with a meter before working on them. Carefully remove switches and check with a meter before working on them, and the same goes for the light fixtures.
You will most likely find one or more places where the loose connection(s) have arced and caused burns or heat discoloration.

[vossman]

Cool, I will give it a shot. I hope this fixes it, Thanks all.

[buffalobo]

You don't need to shut off the main breaker, uless you just want the whole house dead.
Shut off the breaker for that circuit, check with a meter at the breaker where the wire goes in if no voltage, tighten the screw.
go to the rooms and check each outlet with a meter before working on them. Carefully remove switches and check with a meter before working on them, and the same goes for the light fixtures.
You will most likely find one or more places where the loose connection(s) have arced and caused burns or heat discoloration.

^ Will get the job done and educate op.