[StPaulDave]

Hello and thanks for looking at my problem. I am going to describe my problem the best that I can.

A couple of weeks ago I came home form work and the electric opener on my detached garage wasn't opening. I opened the door manually and went to investigate. My door opener motor is plugged into a gfi outlet in my garage.

My first instinct was to hit the test/reset buttuns. It was dark in my garage so I am not sure which one I hit. But when I hit it power seemed to return but it was like it was dying out and getting weaker and weaker making ticking noise as the light on the motor slowly died. I did it again and it died out again. Then on the third attempt it wouldn't do it anymore.

My next thought was to flip the breaker in my box. Surprise, nothing was labeled. So I spent an evening labeling all the breakers and taking the face off the box to trace back breakers that I couldn't figure out by just flipping them on and off. I successfully labeled them all.

So I flipped the garage breaker off and on. Still nothing in the garage.

I will now explain the route of wiring from my breaker box. This wiring was probably done with in the last 5-10 years.

Breaker box, Standard wiring cable covered with the standard white casing.
This leads to a conduit box near a basement window.
In the conduit box the white wire is wired to 2 black cables.
These two black cables run through a whole in my basement window frame to the outside and into the ground and out to my detached garage.
In the detached garage the 2-black wire go to a conduit box in the conduit box they are wired back to a standard white encased electrical cable.
Then the wiring runs to a light switch.
In the light switch they are all attached with wire nuts, allowing power to go to the GFI and power to run through a switch to a light. This light also has no power as well as the GFI. (The switch only toggles for the light not the GFI outlet.)

So what I did was installed a new GFI that has a light for Test button on the outlet. When I did this I can now press in the Test button and the little light lights up but the button won't stay pressed in. So I am getting some power. But still the outlet isn't working and the light / light switch still isn't working.

Next I installed a new light switch not because I thought this would fix it but because I had an extra one laying around and I thought it wouldn't hurt. No change.

So now I am kind of stuck. The next thing I can think to do is change the 15 amp breaker in the box. But I am getting the little test light to come on, so would this do anything? All the wire connections in the conduits, switch and outlet seem fine. Does anyone know what it means when the I tripped the test button in the beginning and it seemed like it died out 2 times and then didn't do anything?

Looking for some help before I call an electrician. I am pretty handy and I think I could replace the breaker myself.

[hkstroud]

Technically, what you are calling a white wire is a cable. A wire is a wire, a cable is two or more wires in an outer sheathing. Find the circuit breaker, turn the breaker off. Check the connection to the breaker by tugging on the wire and tighten the screw. Trace the black wire (hot) to the cable it is in. From there you should be able to trace the white wire (neutral) in that same cable back to the neutral buss. Insure that the screw holding the neutral wire is tight. If this doesn't fix the problem you will have to begin checking voltage at each connection point. If you don't have, purchase a small multimeter, set it to AC volts at some setting greater than 120 volts. Remove the wire nuts and touch one lead of the multimeter to the black and one to the white wire. You should get a reading of 110 to 120 volts. You can also check voltage between the black and the ground (bare) wire.

[stanfortyman]

Check that you wired the GFI correctly. It will not reset if it is wired backwards.

[Stratmando]

I would unplug garage door operator, as a short or leak to ground may cause GFI not to reset.
Disconnect wires from load side of GFI and see if it will reset.