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Author Re: dead wall plugs suddenly - solved
tenplay

2006-05-30, 4:21 pm

tenplay wrote:
> Our electrical wall plugs went dead suddenly when the roofing crew tried
> to run its equipment off of our outside plug. Do we have to call in an
> electrician? All of the switches in the circuit box are on. And
> pressing the reset button in the electrical plug unit in the downstairs
> bathroom doesn't have any effect. Thanks for any advice.


I tried turning the circuit breakers off and on without success. Then I
tried pushing the reset button of the GFCI box but the reset button
would not stay pushed in. Finally I went outside and unplugged the
equipment that the roofers had plugged into an outside box. Then I was
able to push in the GFCI reset button and now all of the wall plugs
work. Can anyone explain what was causing the circuit break? Thanks.
Edwin Pawlowski

2006-05-30, 4:21 pm


"tenplay" <tenplay@mail.com> wrote in message
> Finally I went outside and unplugged the equipment that the roofers had
> plugged into an outside box. Then I was able to push in the GFCI reset
> button and now all of the wall plugs work. Can anyone explain what was
> causing the circuit break? Thanks.


Their equipment has a bad ground or short.


John McGaw

2006-05-30, 10:21 pm

tenplay wrote:
> tenplay wrote:
>
> I tried turning the circuit breakers off and on without success. Then I
> tried pushing the reset button of the GFCI box but the reset button
> would not stay pushed in. Finally I went outside and unplugged the
> equipment that the roofers had plugged into an outside box. Then I was
> able to push in the GFCI reset button and now all of the wall plugs
> work. Can anyone explain what was causing the circuit break? Thanks.


Your posting suggests that _all_ of your interior outlets died suddenly.
And then when you were able to reset the tripped GFCI "box" (what is a
box in this case? a GFCI outlet or a GFCI breaker or something else?)
they all came back. This would be a very odd situation if a large number
of outlets in an entire home were being serviced off of a single GFCI,
especially if you are referring to a single GFCI outlet.

But from your description it appears that some piece of the roofer's
equipment has a leakage path that exceeded the tolerance of the GFCI
which forced it to do its job and open the circuit.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com
Tekkie®

2006-05-30, 11:21 pm

tenplay posted for all of us...
I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

> tenplay wrote:
>
> I tried turning the circuit breakers off and on without success. Then I
> tried pushing the reset button of the GFCI box but the reset button
> would not stay pushed in. Finally I went outside and unplugged the
> equipment that the roofers had plugged into an outside box. Then I was
> able to push in the GFCI reset button and now all of the wall plugs
> work. Can anyone explain what was causing the circuit break? Thanks.
>

There is a ground fault in the roofers equipment. Your gfci worked as
intended. Advise the roofers of this and you consider it a safety hazard.
--
Tekkie
LinkBot





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