I live in a house with older wiring, meaning copper wiring (original 30yr old wiring). We plugged a space heater into an outlet in the kitchen (we have 5 outlets in the kitchen), the space heater blew something, and now 3 outlets in the kitchen do not work. But the other 2 do. We tried replacing all of the fuses, did not work, and we tried changing the outlet, also did not work


What could be wrong?

Could possibly burned one of the hot leads off. Pull all the outlets and look for a burned or disconnected wire.

This happened to me, and my friend traced it back to the circuit breaker, which was fried.

(PS: I don't consider 30 year old wiring old, and isn't all wiring < 40 years old copper? It's the different types - BX, Romex, knob and tubing.)

JP I thought of that too but they said they replaced "all of the fuses"

Bad connection is probably at the last working outlet. Bad connection can be hot or neutral.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hkstroud

Bad connection is probably at the last working outlet. Bad connection can be hot or neutral.

---

Exactly.
Either the last working or the first not working receptacle is most likely the problem.

Jeeze, if 30 years is old I hate to think what you'd consider me.
For wiring in the 70's and 80's they often used quick wire receptacles. This is where the wire is stuck into a hole in the back of a receptacle. They are notorious for failing, especially under very heavy loads, like your space heater.

Did the fuses appear to be cooked, they show if they fried? 30 year copper is not considered old. What size fuse and gauge wire is in this circuit and what was the awttage of the heater?