Wire tracer?

[Rand]

At the parents house they have an addon porch on slab.
All the 120v outlets are dead.

The wiring is buried in the walls and the breakers are all working AFAIK
Oh and half the breakers arent labeled.

Is there some sort of cheap tone generator tool I can use to trace the wires. The house is somewhat old and had some owner addons that are...... ODD

I'd like something I could plug into the outlet and trace the wiring in the basement and in the walls for continuity.

Any ideas? I'm open to suggestions as well.

I am electrically confident/competent for normal handyman type stuff.

I believe they were running a 1400w Quartz type heater when it stopped working a few years(2?) back.

Possibly some wiring burnt in the walls? no idea the outlets are somewhat bad shape from age and unheated winters.. mild corrosion.

I'm already planning on all new outlets (3-4)

And let me just farther empathize its nearly impossible to find the wiring in the basement that goes to these outlets. I think I found it once but no easy way to confirm it.

I have a 5 day weekend coming up at end of march and was planning on tackling this then so suggestions on any helpful tools would be appreciated.

 

[crazyoildude]

i bought a cable tracer from harbor freight that i just found in my basement never used ,lol

 

[Traction]

There is plenty of stuff available, but just thinking out of the box. Many years ago I connected my stereo in the house to a unused 14/2 with ground for common wire to speakers in my detached garage.

 

[eljefino]

http://www.amazon.com/Triplett-Non-Conta...ds=wire+sniffer will tell you if a wire's "hot".

More likely than not the wire arced inside an outlet box where it connects to an outlet. Outlets typically get daisy-chained. The high current heater stressed things.

If they used the "back-stab" quick connects these are immediately highly suspect.

Best response is after making sure you killed the right breaker, connect blacks to blacks and whites to whites inside the box then add six inches of a third wire to come out to your outlet, and wire nut 'em all together. This way if the outlet fails, the pass-through continues. Use the side-screws on your new outlets, not the back-stabs.

Also look for a ground fault interrupter somewhere; it might be somewhere illogical. Few realize they can and often should be wired to protect everything downstream. The oldest, around 20 years old, were flaky and sensitive new and only worse now.

 

[spasm3]

eljefino pretty much said it. Your most likely failure is at a connection point. I think that would fail before a wire burns through. check the closest outlet and check the connections there.

How old is the home? I have seen strange wiring in older homes from the 30s , where lights were wired with a hot line to an outlet or vice versa.

 

[huskersnake]

Amprobe Circuit Tracer

You can buy these used on Ebay for less than $50. They can be used on live or dead circuits. I have used the to trace cable in my yard. You can also use what is called a 'toner'. If used on power circuits, it has to be denergized. They are designed to trace phone and data,circuits. You can find them at Home Depot in the telecommunications department.

 

[kschachn]

Isn't that just a circuit breaker finder? I have one of those and they only work on energized circuits, and only find what breaker controls the specific circuit. I'd be interested to know how you use it to trace dead wires or wires in your yard. I didn't think it could do that.

Originally Posted By: huskersnake

Amprobe Circuit Tracer

You can buy these used on Ebay for less than $50. They can be used on live or dead circuits. I have used the to trace cable in my yard. You can also use what is called a 'toner'. If used on power circuits, it has to be denergized. They are designed to trace phone and data,circuits. You can find them at Home Depot in the telecommunications department.

 

[expat]

Originally Posted By: spasm3
eljefino pretty much said it. Your most likely failure is at a connection point. I think that would fail before a wire burns through. check the closest outlet and check the connections there.

How old is the home? I have seen strange wiring in older homes from the 30s , where lights were wired with a hot line to an outlet or vice versa.



+2

 

[HerrStig]

If ALL the outlets are dead the fault is between the breaker and the first box in the daisy chain, so I'd give that box a close look. Turn off the breaker (VIP!) and use a known good length of wire back to the breaker to test for continuity of of the black and white using the known good length as the "other side " of the loop you create. Pull the black from the breaker to test it and test the white after removing it from the ground connection. Since connections at socket boxes are more likely to fail than than wire itself due to high current heating them up before I did anything else (except for being sure the circuit is dead) is to pull the sockets one by one and look for an overheated connection. It's often a connection where the screw was never tight enough but it took a heavy load like a heater to make it fail. Just hope some hack didn't splice the wire with wire nuts somewhere and bury the joint in the concrete

 

[Donald]

Any GFI outlets.

If there are only 3 or 4 outlets, just pull them all out. One may have only wires coming in, none going out, that will be the last in the circuit. Keep going back and check each outlet.

Its probably one of those outlets where you push in the wire vs attaching it with a screw. They have a tiny amount of surface contact. Electricians who use those spring loaded speed connectors should be shot. Note there are new outlets where you push in a wire and then run a screw down to clamp the wire. Those are great!

 

[Kira]

Hello, Good stuff here. Had the same thing and it was a loose white wire at the end of the "daisy chain". It wiped out the whole circuit. Tightened it up and all was well.

ERGO, HerrStig's (the Boston guy) post is the one I THINK is a good first step.

 

[another Todd]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
http://www.amazon.com/Triplett-Non-Conta...ds=wire+sniffer will tell you if a wire's "hot".

More likely than not the wire arced inside an outlet box where it connects to an outlet. Outlets typically get daisy-chained. The high current heater stressed things.

If they used the "back-stab" quick connects these are immediately highly suspect.

Best response is after making sure you killed the right breaker, connect blacks to blacks and whites to whites inside the box then add six inches of a third wire to come out to your outlet, and wire nut 'em all together. This way if the outlet fails, the pass-through continues. Use the side-screws on your new outlets, not the back-stabs.

Also look for a ground fault interrupter somewhere; it might be somewhere illogical. Few realize they can and often should be wired to protect everything downstream. The oldest, around 20 years old, were flaky and sensitive new and only worse now.


This ^.