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View Full Version : Broken outlets!


brontesghost
Jan 12, 2008, 07:12 PM
On New Year's Eve, my electric stove short-circuited, causing one of the burners to be useless. We removed the burner and flipped the breaker back on, thus the stove became useable again. Not long after this, I noticed that our garbage disposal was not working, but discovered it was due to the outlet it was plugged into, as I plugged it into another outlet and it worked fine (although, this was difficult and inconvenient, as it required an extension cord) well, I also discovered that our outside outlet is no longer working, and neither is the one in the bathroom. The bathroom outlet says it is a GFCI outlet, and it has the two buttons on it for test and reset, and having pressed them and had no result, I was wondering if anyone had any advice for how to go about fixing this problem.

The bathroom outlet not working is quite strange, particularly since it is on the opposite side of the apartment from the kitchen, where the other outages are occurring. Our outside outlet is on the opposite side of the wall that the garbage disposal's outlet is on, which is close to the stove, so I would imagine that they would be connected, but obviously I have no idea. Help! If there is a simple solution to this problem, I'd much rather just fix it than call the rental management and deal with all the bureaucratic nonsense only to either never have it fixed or have it happen 6 months from now. Plugging the gargabe disposal into an extension cord is going to get very, very old very fast! :p

tkrussell
Jan 13, 2008, 06:28 AM
Sounds like you have a few unrelated issues.

Since this is a rental unit, I do have to suggest you have management handle the repairs, as you must be licensed to do any electrical work in a multifamily dwelling. Only owners of their own single family home are allowed to do their own electrical work.

The GFI sounds like it is defective and needs to be replaced. This may solve the bathroom outlet problem. It may solve the GD, but they are not usually on GFI outlets.

Cobraguy
Jan 13, 2008, 06:37 AM
When it comes to working on properties you don't actually own, different rules and regulations can kick in. I would call your property management folks and get an electrician out there immediately.

What bothers me is what in the world would the range tripping have to do with the GFCI circuit that's out? I don't see a connection here... and I don't believe in coincidences. I'm assuming a 240V range...

Are there any other GFCI's in the apartment? Is there one on the outlet outside? If you unplug every load from the GFCI circuit and it still won't reset, there is a decent probability the GFCI is bad. But that is making a huge assumption I wouldn't want to make... especially with the range being in the equation. Some good diagnosis and meter work should get you where you want to be.

Again, I would call the property management folks since this is a rental. If they can't get out to service your needs promptly, then move on to plan B.

EDIT: Looks like TK answered right in front of me. I think we are both on the same page with this one