I hope this is the right place to post this question. It may be long but the details need to be there.
Ok, had a new guy I hired at my apartment community. He was wiring up some outlets and switches and when finished, started checking everything. He got to the last switch and when he turned it on, heard an arcing noise and then the power went out. Not the whole unit, just one 15 amp breaker. He turned the switch off and turned the breaker back on. He immediately called me and I went to look at it.
When I showed up, he mentioned that the dining room light was not working but was working before. With all the breakers on. I checked all the outlets and found a series of outlets out, presumably 9n that same circuit that arced earlier. I isolated the circuit that was affected by no power and also found the problem with what caused the arcing. An outlet on a switch but also had a neutral and a hot to another outlet. So when the switch was flipped, the hot and neutral were connected.
Hopefully, I haven't lost you yet. So where we stand so far is, an outlet short causing an arc and a breaker to trip. With all breakers on, some outlets and lights don't work. Isolated those outlets and lights to a specific 15 amp breaker. Just that breaker on, all others off, nothing has power through out unit.
Now, I checked for 120 to neutral and ground at the breaker panel on this specific breaker and I have 120 volts. So since I had no voltage anywhere, I decided to do a continuity test to every black wire coming in everywhere, at every box, switch or outlet, and found one wire with continuity to this specific breaker which was wire nutted together to two others. However, I did not get 120 volts. Please tell.me what the hell is going on. How is it possible to have continuity between two points with one end showing 120 volts but the other end nothing? And this is where it gets even more weird. When I went to go check for 120 volts, I forgot to switch from continuity to volts and there was continuity between ground and hot! While there was a supposedly 120 volts flowing through this peticular line.
Im usually pretty good at troubleshooting electrical, but this one is throwing me for a loop. I even cut a hole in the wall and pulled the culprit wire out of the box completely and checked continuity to the box again and still it shows continuity. But.now there is.no continuity from the wire in the box to the breaker, which there was before.
What am I missing??
Ok, had a new guy I hired at my apartment community. He was wiring up some outlets and switches and when finished, started checking everything. He got to the last switch and when he turned it on, heard an arcing noise and then the power went out. Not the whole unit, just one 15 amp breaker. He turned the switch off and turned the breaker back on. He immediately called me and I went to look at it.
When I showed up, he mentioned that the dining room light was not working but was working before. With all the breakers on. I checked all the outlets and found a series of outlets out, presumably 9n that same circuit that arced earlier. I isolated the circuit that was affected by no power and also found the problem with what caused the arcing. An outlet on a switch but also had a neutral and a hot to another outlet. So when the switch was flipped, the hot and neutral were connected.
Hopefully, I haven't lost you yet. So where we stand so far is, an outlet short causing an arc and a breaker to trip. With all breakers on, some outlets and lights don't work. Isolated those outlets and lights to a specific 15 amp breaker. Just that breaker on, all others off, nothing has power through out unit.
Now, I checked for 120 to neutral and ground at the breaker panel on this specific breaker and I have 120 volts. So since I had no voltage anywhere, I decided to do a continuity test to every black wire coming in everywhere, at every box, switch or outlet, and found one wire with continuity to this specific breaker which was wire nutted together to two others. However, I did not get 120 volts. Please tell.me what the hell is going on. How is it possible to have continuity between two points with one end showing 120 volts but the other end nothing? And this is where it gets even more weird. When I went to go check for 120 volts, I forgot to switch from continuity to volts and there was continuity between ground and hot! While there was a supposedly 120 volts flowing through this peticular line.
Im usually pretty good at troubleshooting electrical, but this one is throwing me for a loop. I even cut a hole in the wall and pulled the culprit wire out of the box completely and checked continuity to the box again and still it shows continuity. But.now there is.no continuity from the wire in the box to the breaker, which there was before.
What am I missing??