Outlets working intermitantly

[Springer]

First, please forgive me for this long and boring story. My wife kept this a secret from me for a while.

About a year ago, three pairs of non-GFCI outlets in the two upstairs bathrooms went dead. My wife found the GFCI in the downstairs bathroom tripped. She reset it and the upstairs went live again. This has occurred, she tells me, about five times. The reason I finally found out about it is that her fix stopped working. The upstairs outlets went dead, but the downstairs GFCI was not tripped and was working fine. Then the upstairs spontaneously came back for a few days and now has gone dead again.

Gentlemen, I am mystified. Do you have any ideas on this matter? I am not an electrician but do have a multimeter, can follow instructions and am not stupid.

Thank you!!

[HayZee518]

early gfci receptacles used back stabs to connect them up. pull the gfi and see if the wires are loose. if the outlet also has screws, connect the wires here including the downstream feeds. I'd trust screws more often than back stabs

[Springer]

Charred insulation??

I pulled the GFCI (got a little finger buzz...the circuit to the room is not necc the same as to the plug!). I noticed the insulation of the white load-charge line was a little charred very near the screw. Also the metal of the screw, itself, was slightly discolored. All the wires were tightly in place, and I am assuming the GFCI itself has gone bad. I will replace it tomorrow and let you know what happens.

Is the evidence of heat normal?

[Springer]

Heat not normal

I found this link on the subject:

wiki.answers(dot)com/Q/Gfci_outlet_feels_warm_to_the_touch

I am not supposed to post links you you will have to replace the (dot) with a period.

[Nestor]

Is the evidence of heat normal?

How old is your house?

No, I wouldn't consider burned insulation on electrical wiring "normal".

I wouldn't consider the GFCI tripping 5 times in a year "normal" either unless you got shocked 5 times last year by the same hair dryer, electric shaver or curling iron.

On older homes it's common to find wiring in the electrical boxes of ceiling light fixtures where the insulation has been baked by the heat from incandescent light bulbs rising up into the electrical box so that it's brittle and breaks easily, but not actually "burnt". However, you don't see that on the wiring in electrical boxes containing switches or receptacles because you simply don't get as much heating and the electrical box isn't in the path of the rising heated air like you have in an electrical box situated directly over an incandescent light bulb.

You should also check the non-GFCI receptacles in the upstairs bathroom that are protected by that GFCI in the downstairs bathroom.

Are you confident that what you saw was burned insulation?

[HayZee518]

burnt insulation

A burnt indication is because the terminal was overloaded, or is a high resistance from oxidation. Is your wiring aluminum or copper?

[Springer]

So today I installed a new GFCI...

...and the upstairs outlets are still almost dead. I say almost because I was testing them with a battery charger that has an LED. The LED would light for a moment then fade out.

Yes, I made sure the GFCI was reset.

Thank you all for any advice you might have!!

[Springer]

Burned?

Well, baked or oxidized could also describe what I saw. I picked some if it away, but the enclosed picture sort of shows the crustiness of the insulation.

[Nestor]

Yes, it definitely looks like the insulaton on that white wire has been damaged, probably by heat due to excessive current through that wire.

Is this a newer home where the wiring was done recently by trained electricians, or is this an older home where the wiring may have been modified multiple times by previous home owners?

The damaged insulation on that wire suggest to me that you may have a wiring problem, and at some point there may have been 220 volt power going through that white wire.

[Springer]

Our house

It is about 35 years old and the basement was finished after the house was built, so I am guessing things might not be utterly up to code, though we have done nothing in this arena for the 11 years we have lived here.

[HayZee518]

outlets

we'll have to go about this systematically. if you think this is out of the gfci box, remove the gfci and just splice the white to the white and the black to the black and check your bedroom's outlets. make note of which you think is the hot pair [white-black]
next, invest in a clamp around ammeter in order to check the current draw in any wire. voltage is insignificant until you reach higher voltage more than 600 volts.
don't get me wrong, safety is of the utmost importance.
that discoloration on the wires suggest burning but it almost looks like spray in foam insulation when they were insulating the house.
also it looks like a diy job - there's too much bare wire exposed at the wire ends.
shut off the circuit before you splice anything together. I don't see how 240 volts would be in the box unless it is fed by a multi-wire cable. wiring with a three wire and ground [white, black, red and ground] would be a multi-wire circuit. that is fed off a two pole breaker with a common trip. but for now do what I said and see where you are at.

[Springer]

clamp around ammeter

Forgive me. What is a clamp around ammeter? Google does not show many hits on this. Could it be bought at a home depot?

[Springer]

Problem solved?

My wife, bless her heart, solved the problem, I think. She noted that if she wiggled the plug on one of the upstairs receptacles that power returned to all the receptacles. They are in series, I guess. Please do not take anymore time on my problem. I will write back after I have reset the wiring on the bum receptacle or replaced it.

[HayZee518]

outlets

if that be the case, remove THAT outlet and see how it is connected. if the screws holding the wires are loose tighten them. if the wires go into the back stabs, replace the outlet with one that doesn't use the back quick wire holes. use the screws.
in answer to your request of a clamp around ammeter, IDEAL makes a clamp around that's easy to use and has an lcd readout. it'll measure up to 600 amps directly. it also has a limited ohm meter function.

[Nestor]

Springer:

All of those upstairs receptacles will be wired in parallel so that each receptacle can work independantly of the others. While the wiring goes from one receptacle to the next, the receptacles are electrically connected in parallel.

What HayZee is calling a "clamp around" ammeter is more commonly called a "clamp on" ammeter. A clamp on ammeter has a "clamp" on it which reaches around a wire to measure the magnetic field around the wire from with the current through the wire is determined.