Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find & fix the break?

I've been using electrical spot heaters only, for heat this winter for the first time with no gas. I have the old screw in type of fuses and I can not afford to re-wire my house. The last two times I overloaded the system, all I had to do was replace a fuse. This time all of the fuses are good. The Electric company came out and said that it is in the wiring inside and probably around the socket area that had the most things plugged into. So here's the deal...

I understand that I have got to unplug one big thing before I can use another to prevent this from happening again. I've changed all the fuses to 20 Amp instead of 30 Amp which is another reason for this particular problem. Money is tight and I do not want to call an electrician unless I absolutely have to.



So I am going to turn off all the electricity and look in the socket areas that are not working. Now here is the question... What am I looking for and how do I fix it? Even if I can't fix it at least I can find the problem area and cut down the time it will take for the electrician to fix it to save me money.



By the way, I'm finally getting my gas fixed tomorrow(Hopefully) I had a gas leak underneath my house and it has been turned off completely, which means I will get my hot water back.

Just one more day... Please? Help?Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?Hi jem, sorry to hear you're still having problems. As you are determined to fix this yourself it is best to wise up a bit on how it all works unfortunately there is no indication of what country you are in.

I will try to explain then find you some references, the more you know the safer you will be.

In the UK at least sockets are wired in a ring. To understand this it's like this, one long piece of wire obviously has two ends. Live, neutral and black at both ends. Imagine both ends connected to the same L,N,E at the fuse box . You then have a wire in a loop and individual sockets will be connected along this loop. Where each socket connects to the wire then obviously the wire would have to be cut, giving LNE into the socket and LNE out to the next one. Wiring in a ring is for safety as it ensures an even distibution of load, but if the cable was broken somewhere your sockets would normally continue to work as both sides are connected to the LNE.

Not all countries use a ring main and older uk systems maybe did not use a ring. If this is the case then your wiring is extremely dangerous. Assuming it's not on a ring then it could be a simple break in the cable and this may be near or in a socket. You would be looking to ensure that each socket has a live neutral and earth in and out and that each connection is secure.

Assuming that your wiring is on a ring, then you are either looking for more than one break or a problem where the main power comes in. Now you say one half of your house is working which brings an extra problem....lights and sockets run off different fuses. If both lights and sockets are not working in one half of your house, then you must have a separate fuse for that half, it's very unlikely that both lighting and socket cables broke at the same time.

So then you would be looking at where the supplies come from. You may find two main fuses often before the main fuse box. One for one half of the house the other for the other half. You could possibly establish this by taking out one fuse and seeing if your remaining electric goes off. Then it is likely that the problem is at the other fuse or forward but i must stress that any fuses before the fusebox are dangerous and should be handled with extreme care. Both these fuses would most likely be the same rating. If you establish that both fuses are good, then your problem lies forward from that, first into the fuse box itself and then forward to each individual socket.

The complexity with your problem lies in the old wiring and not knowing if it is a ring main or not.

I will try to find some sites with extra details to help you, but again i must stress extreme care must be taken at all times.Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?I use a circuit voltage detector. They beep and a light appears if power is present.The cost is about $8.00. Be very safe and call an electrician if you are in any way unsure of doing this yourself. Check D.I.Y.Household Wiring on the Internet to give you confidence.Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?did you pull out the mains and check the big long fuses? you will need a hand held meter. I have the same type box and sometime it will be the screw in ones, at other times the big ones.Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?Do exactly what Rho said

. Do not try to wriggle the fuses. Check the fuses in the main that is in the box.Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?look for a black carbon scale on the contacts,

it will act as an insulator, keeping the elect from flowing

use a pencil eraser to clean themHome Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?Be very careful. Wiggle the fuses in their sockets as well.Home Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?Make sure that you use the correct size fuse. If it is a %26quot;fusestat%26quot; fuse panel, then you can't put a 20 amp fuse where a 15 would go. Check this first. If the fuses are good, then you may have a faulty connection somewhere. I would pull the outlets out and see if they are backstabbed. Its a fast cheap way to install an outlet and over time they arc out and it will kill the rest of the outlets downstream....good luckHome Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?Are you 100 per cent sure all your fuses are good???? Have you got a multi meter to check if you are getting power on the output side of the fuse???? As some times the little indicators that pop when a fuse blows does not pop. If you are 100 per cent certain all your fuses are ok and that they are all in correctly you will have to go to the outlets that are not working, remove them from the wall and check to see if you are getting power here. If you are not getting power it al most certain there is a breakage in the cabble. It is very likey that by overloading the circuit you burnt through the cable. You will have to trace your wires to find the breakage abd replace the broken wireHome Electrical Problems! All my fuses are good but still no juice in 2 rooms! How do I find %26amp; fix the break?electricians make connections inside outlet boxes. several boxes will be in a string like christmas tree lights. Find the box before the last outlet that isn't working. Open it and look for a burned off wire. It could be any where. be safe!