Last night before bed I thought I was turning off the surge protector to my TV/DVD/HD Cable Box (which was humming and running warm since I got it 2 weeks ago). When I hit the button - the displays went off and I thought all was well and went to bed. This morning when I got up and went to turn on the surge protector I realized that I had hit the reset button instead of the power button and there was no power. No power in the room on 3 sides of the room and no power in the two ajoining rooms on the common walls. I checked breakers and nothing was tripped. Reset main and then went top to bottom on box. Nothing. Called power company and they came out - all breakers register fine - all the outlets in the affected areas read 0. He said I had a broken wire somewhere. Any ideas on where to start?

ballengerb1

Start by opening the outlet cover nearest to the panel and work your way downstream. If you have a meter check the hot or fat blade for power by inserting the probe in the fat blade and ground the other probe to the box or rgound wire, if your boxes are grounded. This will help you to determine if the broken wire is the neutral or the hot.