Dead outlets in great room behind wet bar

Wires, breakers, outlets, switches - be careful
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kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Dead outlets in great room behind wet bar

Post by kevm14 »

I once worked at trying to make these work and gave up. Previously, I had replaced the wall sconces since I had some arcing and sparking in the old ones one night like 2 months after moving in. There are a couple of single gang outlets like a foot below each sconce and they never worked. I fiddled around and never figured it out.

Well fast forward to impending kitchen remodel. We just set up most of the kitchen stuff in the great room area. It definitely could be worse. Ian discovered a fluorescent lamp above the sink which is pretty cool. But we would need to plug in the following countertop appliances:
- Keurig (1425W)
- Microwave (1300W)
- Toaster oven (1200W)
- Hot plate burner (1300W)
- Electric frying pan (1500W)

Obviously you cannot power more than one of these on a 15A circuit (1800W - this is why kitchens have multiple 20A circuits). Most of the great room outlets are a single circuit and guess what - 12,000 BTU window A/C unit. I have already popped the breaker once running the vacuum and A/C at the same time (last summer maybe). I did get a good 12ga extension cord and run that into another circuit in the living room (one that does not power a window A/C unit). But that only really gets one appliance, or in my case, three that can only be used one at a time (toaster oven, burner, electric frying pan). I needed another circuit. Which leads to this post.

I pulled the sconce off the wall and that didn't do anything for me. The wire goes into the wall and down. Then I pulled the outlet cover off and couldn't see too much, but I did see that a white and black came in, and connected via that bus bar on the outlet, and went back out again. I just couldn't understand why they did not have power.

I worked at it for 20 minutes or so then got smart. Need to check the dimmer switch. That would obviously need power all the time. Maybe there was some screwed up connection in there or whatever. This is the new part. I never got that far before. So I pulled the cover off and looked at all the wiring. All of the neutrals were bound together. I checked continuity between those neutrals and a neutral on one of the dead outlets and - continuity!! OK, this is good; at least it's not completely cut off in the wall or something. Looked closer. There was a single hot wire terminated into nothing with a wirenut and some tape. WTF? I pulled that apart and thought...what if this is supposed to be the hot feed for the outlets? So I checked continuity between that and a hot on the outlets - yup! Oh man. Now all I had to do was find the always hot wire (not the one on the other side of the dimmer) and twist that lone wire into that. I did that and sure enough, I FINALLY have outlets below the sconces and they are a different circuit than the rest of the great room. So on those I connected the microwave and Kuerig (probably shouldn't use at the same time).

This may sound bad but I think it's better than what most people have during a major kitchen overhaul. I didn't take pics of the repair but I'll get a few of our temporary kitchen since it is related.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Dead outlets in great room behind wet bar

Post by kevm14 »

Forgive the crappy pictures....didn't feel like retaking them. Phone is old now...
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I enjoy the Christmas Story/Christmas Vacation style plug situation. The surge protector is rated at 15A and so is the circuit so I don't think there is any fire potential here. Just various tripping of things (the surge protector or circuit breaker in my main box).
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Dead outlets in great room behind wet bar

Post by kevm14 »

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This is one of the outlets. The other is below the other sconce.
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Sweet.
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