The electrical system inside a residential home can be one of the most frustrating parts of owning a home.
One of the most common problems is when an outlet stops working it can be a bit difficult to nail down the exact cause of the problem.
As part of our research for this article, we came up with common causes for an electrical outlet that is not working, even if the breaker appears to be on.
Along with the common causes we came up with an easy fix that most homeowners should be able to take care of without having to call or pay an electrician.
4 causes for an outlet not working but breaker Is still ON
- #1 The breaker might be tripped and not being reset
- #2 The outlet is a GFCI and the breaker is tripped
- #3 Loose connections on the outlet
- #4 The electrical outlet is damaged
The breaker might be tripped (even if it looks like it’s ON)
Today’s residential homes all have the main power panel for the home located near where the electrical meter is connected to the house.
Inside the power panel is where you will find the circuit breakers for all of the electrical outlets in the house.
To make it easier to locate which breaker is associated with which electrical outlets the electrical contractor will label each of the circuit breakers inside the panel.
These breakers are designed to trip if an overcurrent condition happens.
This will cut off the current that flows to the outlets to prevent a possible fire due to an electrical short.
A tripped breaker is indicated when the breaker handle is sitting in middle between off and on.
However, there are times that the breaker is tripped but the handle does not move.
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In this case, you will want to move the handle to the off position and then back to the on position.
Go back to the outlet and using a multimeter or a test light to see if there is power again.
The outlet is a GFCI and the breaker is tripped
According to current building codes all electrical outlets are located in an area of the house that represents an extreme danger of electrical shorts like near water.
However, since there is no specific code that covers how a house has to be wired, it is possible that the outlet you are dealing with might be daisy-chained with a GFCI equipped outlet and it was tripped.
A GFCI or Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor outlet is designed to break the connection of the power coming in and going out of the outlet.
If this is the case, you will need to check all of the outlets in the room to see if that happens to be the case.
It is really easy to identify this GFCI type of outlet because it will have a test button and a reset button.
The best way to check to see if it is tripped, just push the resent button.
Then you can go back to the original outlet and see if it is working again.
Using a multimeter or test light you can check to see if there is power there.
Loose connections on the outlet
As a homeowner, if you have an electrical outlet that is not working there are several possible causes other than the circuit breaker is off or tripped.
If you have eliminated the power is off as the problem, the next possible thing is that there might be a loose connection of the wires leading to the outlet.
Over time, one or possibly both of the incoming power wires that are supposed to be connected to the inlet side of the outlet have come loose or possibly come completely out of the outlet.
This will prevent the outlet from receiving the necessary power to work properly.
To check to see if there is a loose or disconnected wire you want to first locate the correct breaker inside your home’s main power panel and turn the breaker off.
Using a screwdriver to remove the screw that his holding the outlet cover on.
Then you will need to remove the two screws that are holding the outlet in place.
Today’s outlets have push-in holes located at the bottom of the outlet on both sides.
There is also a screw that corresponds with the hole nearest it.
If none of the wires are hanging out, you should go ahead and tighten all of the screws to ensure that none of them are loose.
After tightening all the screws to be sure everything is tight, push the outlet back into the wall and tighten the two screws.
Then put the cover back on and turn on the breaker and test the outlet.
The electrical outlet is damaged
If you have an outlet that is not working in your home and you already checked to see if the breaker inside the main power panel for your home and it was not off or tripped.
It is very possible that there can be damage to the outlet that you cannot see from the outside.
There are a couple of ways that an electrical outlet can be damaged that are not visible.
But the damage will likely prevent the outlet from working properly.
The only real way to determine if there is damage to the outlet is to open it up and investigate further.
In order to do this, you need to first turn off the breaker in the main power panel that feeds the outlets that you are looking it.
Once you turn the power off remove the screw that is holding the cover in place with a screwdriver.
Then you need to re remove the two screws holding the outlet in place.
Carefully pull out the outlet and inspect it for any signs of burning, arcing or any other type of damage.
If you suspect damage, it is safer to just replace the outlet with a similar outlet.
Once it is replaced, using a screwdriver to put the two screws that are used to hold it in place.
Put the cover back and turn the breaker back on and test it.
Hello.
I just painted my second bedroom and replaced all the outlets and light switches and now when I turn on the breaker, I have no power to all the outlets in my second bedroom and no power to the lights in the bathroom (next to the second bedroom). I checked the output of the breaker once and all the wires have power. Where should I check please?
Thanks!
The outlet behind my dishwasher isn’t working. The breaker isn’t tripped and I changed out the outlet with a new one and it’s still not working. What else could it be
Time to call an electrician, as long as you already checked everything.
I have a power outage in the about half the house, I checked the breakers and they are not tripped, tried resetting them nothing. I used a non contact voltage tester and determined that three breakers are not getting power and seems the lines going into them aren’t hot(no power) Two of the breakers are fairly new, maybe four years since installation. I also have a breaker box under the house with two bussmen fuses one green And one red, the red shows it receiving power while the green shows nothing. Any idea what I’m dealing with?
Hi, I have (2) 20 amp outlets on a single circuit that both don’t work. There is power at the panel to that circuit and in the line leaving the panel. I used a voltage tester to determine this. When the voltage tester was used at the outlet end, there is no power. The path of the wire from panel to outlet involves an inside corner 90 degree turn. We’re talking about 20′ of wire. Is it possible there is a break in the line as it went through the corner studs? Wiring is 20 years old. Thank you. Greg
So if the breaker is not tripped and power is coming to plugs but nothing works when plugged in what would be the issue?
Bad wire connection
One side of kitchen wall power is not working, circuit breaker is not tripped I have turned it off an on several times but I still have no power, could it still be my breaker?
I would check wire connection inside the receptacle, after turning power OFF, of course. And also on the breaker side.
You may already be aware of this but some breakers have a middle position and people sometimes think the breaker is off when it’s actually in the middle position. Then they turn the breaker back on and it still doesn’t work, possibly because it was never actually turned off. In the following video, it appears that only one of the breaker switches in this example has a middle position and the homeowner wasn’t turning the breaker all the way off because he wasn’t aware of this and this happened to be the breaker that was causing the problem. I hope this helps though I realize you’ve probably already have fixed your problem but maybe this will be useful to someone else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf-m1QisJ6c
Eugene
My smoke detector kept going off. The panel box did not identify which switch was for the alarm breaker so I switched them all off and then all on. No electrical power whatsoever now. I switched all off and then on and again no power. Switched the main off and on twice….no power. Any ideas?
Thanks
Brian
Brian, i recommend you to get Non-contact voltage tester. Its an inexpensive device and you will be able to check if detector is getting power or not. Try to reset breaker, by flipping it OFF all the way and then ON.
BREAKER IS hot and MY GFI in bathroom works but the outlet to the porch went out and I tested it and it’s not hot. (BOTH ARE ON SAME 15 AMP BREAKER)
How do I change an outlet without killing myself
If you are not comfortable doing this job, call an electrician…
all breakers hot in panel however 2 3way switches have no power. I realize there must be an open somewhere. 3or4 j boxes in attic also many wires going in and out of them; a real mess.evenworse breakers are not marked. I know this is difficult am hoping you may have some troubleshooting ideas that might help me out. would appreicate it very much. thank you,
I tested an outlet/switch combo and got 5 or less volts, pulled the outlet from the wall, tested the hot leads with a multimeter, not the outlet’s terminals but the wires going into the outlet, and also got about 5 or less volts whereas, just to test the meter, I checked and got full voltage on the other outlets. I tripped and reset all the breakers, then tested the outlet and wires again, still getting about 5 or less volts. Then I removed the cover from the breaker panel and tested all the breakers and they were all reading full voltage at the output screws, which were all tight. I assumed that if the hot wires going into the outlet are reading the same low voltage as the outlet, the outlet must be ok, so I thought maybe a junction box existed between the breaker panel and the outlet in which junction box the wire going from that wire nut in the junction box to this outlet had maybe been the fourth wire in a three-wire wire nut and the extreme cold weather the last two days contracted the wire enough to pull it away from the other and leave it with only the voltage from the magnetic field around the other wires that are in better contact with each other, giving me the low voltage in the outlet. Before we moved in to this house previous owner put a small addition above the garage and the stairwell leading up to that is actually along the garage side of what was the wall between the garage and the house originally, and this outlet with low voltage is on that wall, so maybe the previous owner, a builder, didn’t do such a great job of wiring that wall to the outlet/switch, which also turns on the ceiling light in the garage. Thanks for any tips I’ve forgotten to check.
For me it sounds like not proper wire connection between breaker and the outlet. You need to figure which outlets on the same circuit. As you know, they are all in parallel. I can not give any tips more than you already did.