Help with Elecrical outlets

[doobieevan]

The person who wired my house must of been epicly dumb about it, house is 30 years old~~.
upstairs most of the outlets work. but downstairs only half of them work. im not sure if it was from a surge but, the breaker box is so old and wires all over lol. okay well is it possible for main hard wire from breaker to outlet surged and needs repair or could it be outlet? or breaker. ill give more info if needed i just dont know exatly were to start.

[pushkins]

Possibly what has happened is that outlets almost always feed other outlets down the line, if the first one is faulty or has bad wiring it will most often stop the flow of power down the line.
It could be a bad breaker but that's not a real common culprit, You could trip the breakers and then turn them back on, I have seen some breakers trip but not clearly show you they are tripped (lever stays closer to "on" then "off").

Do you have any lights that are not working and what rooms are the outlets not working in ?
What brand is the breaker box ?

[HayZee518]

start at the panel box. pick one breaker and the wire going to it and trace where it goes with a flashlight. it may go up through a drilled hole in the wall partition. it may go to a junction box and split up going in multiple directions. don't give up just continue to look where it goes. once you got half an idea where it goes, shut off the breaker and see what it "supposedly" fed. then start removing outlets along that line. check for loose wirenuts and loose wires on outlet screws. check the light switchboxes for loose neutrals and loose hots under wirenuts. granted it ain't easy but an electrician would be doing the same thing.