Please school me on tracing circuits (1 Viewer)

[2mbb]

I really do respect the wealth of knowledge on MUD. And I appreciate any help you can give me.

We moved into a new to us home about one year ago. This home has several switches that apparently do nothing and a couple of receptacles that are not powered. I have one breaker that will trip as soon as I close it but other than the dead receptacles I’m not aware of any other items not working. I have two sub panels and I’d like to confirm what items each breaker controls.

So, what is the best way to go about this? My wife, who usually works from home, is going to be traveling on business in June so that gives me an opportunity to turn off circuits, etc without disrupting her work. An ideal outcome would be to have the panel breakers accurately labeled and each receptacle/switch labeled with a breaker number. A bonus would be to power the non working outlets.

Thanks.

 

[thabruiser]

Have you checked to make sure the switches are not tied to the receptacles that seem to be inoperable? Our house was built in the early 80's, and it turned out that almost every room had a switched outlet (I assume for a lamp?).







As far as how to go about tracing circuits,it is not-so-simply a matter of turning off breaker switches, and going and seeing what doesn't work or turn on anymore. It will be tedious at first, but as you near the end you'll find it going quicker. Something I have done as I have gone through my house, is label the breaker panel number associated to a switch or receptacle on the back side of the face plate. Also, every J box in the attic is numbered according to the corresponding breaker that controls that circuit.

My next step is to make a rough blueprint of the house and diagram it out on paper so I don't have to look for "kitchen GFCI" in writing, I just look in the kitchen part of the diagram and see what number is associated with that outlet, switch, etc.

I am not an electrician but the feller who owned the home before me was an electrical engineer and I sure appreciate how detailed he was in labeling things! Hope this helps!!

 

[e9999]

IIANM, there are devices that you plug in a receptacle that will then "buzz" the corresponding breaker, which you can identify with a counterpart device, so you can tell easily which goes where. I think Klein has some.

 

[PAToyota]

My wife, who usually works from home, is going to be traveling on business in June so that gives me an opportunity to turn off circuits, etc without disrupting her work.

It actually tends to work better with two people - one at the panel and one out at the "business" end of circuits. Otherwise you spend a lot of time running back and forth.

This is the sort of thing @e9999 mentioned: https://a.co/d/1WPr33S

I got a cheaper one many moons ago that ended not working so well. There was a lot of crossover between circuits, so I'd try to narrow things down and then have to check by turning circuits off to find the right one. Hopefully they've gotten better since that one.

A handful of these can make manual receptacle testing easier: https://a.co/d/hTSj6Ln

Although, another option is a plug-in radio. Turn it up loud enough that you can hear it from the panel - or at least from the door/stairs/whatever - so you don't have to go the whole way from panel to room to see if that breaker was the one.

It does sound like you might have a couple more complex circuits, though. The ones that don't work. I agree with @thabruiser that the first thing to check is for switched receptacles. If not that, then you have to start doing some more in-depth detective work. Start by checking to see if you're getting power at the switches. Then start trying to trace where it goes. Also check to make sure all the connections are tight and you don't have a loose wire at the switch or receptacle. Power going out to "something" or "nothing" isn't a good thing and has a chance of causing issues/fires in worst cases...

 

[2mbb]

Have you checked to make sure the switches are not tied to the receptacles that seem to be inoperable? Our house was built in the early 80's, and it turned out that almost every room had a switched outlet (I assume for a lamp?).







As far as how to go about tracing circuits,it is not-so-simply a matter of turning off breaker switches, and going and seeing what doesn't work or turn on anymore. It will be tedious at first, but as you near the end you'll find it going quicker. Something I have done as I have gone through my house, is label the breaker panel number associated to a switch or receptacle on the back side of the face plate. Also, every J box in the attic is numbered according to the corresponding breaker that controls that circuit.

My next step is to make a rough blueprint of the house and diagram it out on paper so I don't have to look for "kitchen GFCI" in writing, I just look in the kitchen part of the diagram and see what number is associated with that outlet, switch, etc.

I am not an electrician but the feller who owned the home before me was an electrical engineer and I sure appreciate how detailed he was in labeling things! Hope this helps!!

Thanks for the reply. The end result I envision is something like you describe, with receptacles labeled to the corresponding breaker and perhaps a power plan schematic. I have checked the non-working receptacles against nearby switches--I don't expect a downstairs switch by the front door to control a receptacle in the master bedroom. I have some "automatic" bathroom fans installed (humidity switch) that could account for some no longer needed switches. And I suppose power may have been robbed from a receptacle for a nearby smoke detector...although I don't know why they couldn't share.

 

[2mbb]

IIANM, there are devices that you plug in a receptacle that will then "buzz" the corresponding breaker, which you can identify with a counterpart device, so you can tell easily which goes where. I think Klein has some.

It actually tends to work better with two people - one at the panel and one out at the "business" end of circuits. Otherwise you spend a lot of time running back and forth.

This is the sort of thing @e9999 mentioned: https://a.co/d/1WPr33S

I got a cheaper one many moons ago that ended not working so well. There was a lot of crossover between circuits, so I'd try to narrow things down and then have to check by turning circuits off to find the right one. Hopefully they've gotten better since that one.

A handful of these can make manual receptacle testing easier: https://a.co/d/hTSj6Ln

Although, another option is a plug-in radio. Turn it up loud enough that you can hear it from the panel - or at least from the door/stairs/whatever - so you don't have to go the whole way from panel to room to see if that breaker was the one.

It does sound like you might have a couple more complex circuits, though. The ones that don't work. I agree with @thabruiser that the first thing to check is for switched receptacles. If not that, then you have to start doing some more in-depth detective work. Start by checking to see if you're getting power at the switches. Then start trying to trace where it goes. Also check to make sure all the connections are tight and you don't have a loose wire at the switch or receptacle. Power going out to "something" or "nothing" isn't a good thing and has a chance of causing issues/fires in worst cases...

Thanks. Buying more tools is always an option. I will have a couple if kids (young adults) at home, but I suspect they will be sleeping through most of this. My wife will be gone about 2 weeks, so I can do a few rooms a day, then document what I found.

I have one of those plug in receptacle testers. Mine is vintage (three colored lights) so I might get a new one with more functions. But I will map everything with power on then trace back to the circuit. I also have some google wireless (battery operated) security camera's that I might use to give me a remote visual into a room via my iPhone.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

A lot of GFI circuits only have one GFI outlet with the others wired "downstream" from that one. And sometimes that first and only GFI outlet is in a not too obvious spot. Make sure you have found every outlet and it isn't a GFI that's got the other outlets deenergized. Most of my outdoor outlets (including the ones on our screened porch) are fed from a GFI outlet which is on an outside wall in a golf cart garage. Wasn't easy to find the first time the undercounter fridge on the porch was off.

 

[PAToyota]

A lot of GFI circuits only have one GFI outlet with the others wired "downstream" from that one. And sometimes that first and only GFI outlet is in a not too obvious spot.

Years ago, the woman I was in a relationship with had the receptacles in her (three) bathrooms go out - downstairs and two upstairs. Somewhat older house, so I wasn't sure if it had GFCI or not. Receptacles in the bathrooms weren't GFCI. Checked the breaker in the panel. Nope, that was good. Went through the house looking to see if there was a GFCI anywhere else that had tripped. Nope.
Stood there scratching my head and went back to the panel in the basement... And there I noticed a GFCI receptacle squarely below the panel... Reset it... Receptacles all worked...
So the blankety-blank-blankin'-blanker electrician had saved the cost of a GFCI breaker by putting in a GFCI receptacle and had saved the cost of two GFCI receptacles by not putting one in each bathroom for easy access, but had put a single GFCI receptacle (the only one in the whole house) right below the panel (it was a finished basement, so didn't technically need to be GFCI there) so you had to go the whole way to the basement - down the basement stairs, through the family room, to a semi-workshop room to reset the GFCI...

 

[LSUfj]

This thing works pretty well and is cheap. I used it to track an underground sprinkler control wire. It makes a sound when you get close to the right wire. In your case, you’d have to rig up something to attach this to the outlet, or open up the outlet to gain access to the actual wires.

Cable Tracker

Amazing deals on this Cable Tracker at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[e9999]

I imagine you'd want a device that can work with a live wire if you don't want to turn off power to the entire house or much of the panel at once. But that would require good equipment and some caution.

 

[2mbb]

Thanks, guys. So I purchased this to get me started. I think i will start by checking every outlet & switch to make sure it is energized and outlets wired correctly. I will use the circuit breaker finder to locate one receptical, turn that breaker off, then see which outlets/switches are no longer energized. Then move on to an outlet on another circuit.

That should get me most of the way through. I'll be left with the switches and outlets that don't seem to be connected. I may have to get something that will trace the dead wires, if I'm still interested. I'll let you know how it goes when I get started in June!

 

[thabruiser]

Another thing I ran into on my house was that there were several switches and receptacles that no longer had live wires going to them,due to walls being removed, and lights no longer being needed (a closet was eliminated). I guess instead of removing the non-working switches, they just left them there to confuse people later...lol. Have you pulled the cover(s) to see if they even have wires going to them?

 

[PIP]

Gotta love old houses... Mine was built in '26. And added onto 26 times. One of the exciting things I found when I bought it was 1/4 of the house fed from a pair 120 breakers. And I mean one circuit, 2 breakers. flipping off one breaker did nothing. Had to to turn off both to kill power.

Another one- I had really high electric bills the first spring. Couldn't figure it out until I was in my driveway, about 100 feet from the house on a very wet day and I heard a sizzling, popping sound from the ground. I killed power at the main service entrance and the sounds stopped. Found a 60 amp breaker in the house was feeding 6 awg wires in conduit that were just cut off and buried out in my driveway.

 

[2mbb]

Another thing I ran into on my house was that there were several switches and receptacles that no longer had live wires going to them,due to walls being removed, and lights no longer being needed (a closet was eliminated). I guess instead of removing the non-working switches, they just left them there to confuse people later...lol. Have you pulled the cover(s) to see if they even have wires going to them?

I have only checked a couple so far. We had two non-functional switches in our master bathroom. I think they were both used for ventilation fans. The fan next to the shower is controlled by humidity, so it doesn't need a switch, so I guess the switch was abandoned. The fan for the toilet didn't work at all. I had to cut that fan out of the sheet rock to find they had originally wired it incorrectly and then just disconnected it at the switch. By removing the fan I was able to rewire it and now it works with the switch!

 

[2mbb]

Gotta love old houses... Mine was built in '26. And added onto 26 times. One of the exciting things I found when I bought it was 1/4 of the house fed from a pair 120 breakers. And I mean one circuit, 2 breakers. flipping off one breaker did nothing. Had to to turn off both to kill power.

Another one- I had really high electric bills the first spring. Couldn't figure it out until I was in my driveway, about 100 feet from the house on a very wet day and I heard a sizzling, popping sound from the ground. I killed power at the main service entrance and the sounds stopped. Found a 60 amp breaker in the house was feeding 6 awg wires in conduit that were just cut off and buried out in my driveway.

my house isn't that old. It was built in the 70's (1970s). I was remodeled in 2019-ish and the then-owner owned an electrical contractor business (!). I expected him to "know better". The remodel shows well but I think it was done on the cheap (poor workmanship).

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

Power going out to "something" or "nothing" isn't a good thing and has a chance of causing issues/fires in worst cases...

This.


Especially in an older home.

If you are in doubt, hire a qualified electrician.

 

[2mbb]

So I got through the first round. The Klein Circuit Breaker finder didn't work so well for me. Maybe I was using it wrong. I saw a post on Reddit where someone said it doesn't work well on arc fault and GFI breakers and I think I have some breakers that are GFI. Although I tested a lot of the circuits via receptacles for GFI and I never got a circuit breaker to trip...only GFIC receptacles. My experience with the Klein tool is that some breakers always tested as being the one with the signal. And it was inconsistent whether I could find the correct breaker. It resulted in a lot of trial and error.

I have a main panel that has two sub panels (Panel A and Panel B). The main panel also has a 50 A 220V breaker for the Air Conditioner. There is also a 50A 220V breaker to use a generator to feed Panel B. I don't have the generator, and I didn't get instructions how to use this feature. The generator breaker in the main panel is turned off. There is a corresponding 50A breaker in Panel B that I think is related. I think if I was using a generator, when the power goes off, I would turn off the panel B breaker and turn on the generator breaker in the main panel. Then the generator would feed panel B through the 50A breaker in the sub panel.

There are several circuits in both Panel A and Panel B that don't seem to be actively wired to something. These are labeled as "not identified". Would it be good practice to keep these breakers "off" if they do not seem to provide power to anything?

I have a few circuits, A3 in particular, that seem have a lot of things wired to it. Over 20 discrete receptacles or switches for circuit A3. This includes my main refrigerator. So far I haven't had any problems with the breaker tripping, but I'm wondiering if it is something I should worry about.

Any other comments are appreciated! Thanks.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I think you need to hire a real electrician at this point. That’s a lot of unidentified breakers.

 

[e9999]

Well, you can't go wrong with turning off those unidentified circuits, I would think. Then either nothing happens and that's fine, or eventually you find someplace not having power when it should and you take it from there. Either way, it's good.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Have you pulled the cover panels to see if wires are attached to those breakers?