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The master bedroom and middle bedroom of my 3 bedroom mobile home is without power. None of the breakers have flipped. I even changed the breaker that controls that part of the house and my ceiling fan in my living room. Still nothing in those listed bedrooms, but the ceiling fan is working fine and I'm getting 115 VAC to the breaker. I was thinking it could be a short to one of the plugs in the middle room. It was working fine earlier in the morning. I went into the middle room to turn on an electric heater and everything went dark. I changed the plug and still nothing.

What should I do now?

Niall C.
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Melissa Sandvik
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    Sounds like perhaps you've lost one leg of the power. Check a 240V stove or dryer plug using your multimeter/tester. Hot-to-hot there should be 240V, and hot-to-ground and hot-to-neutral from both hots should both be 120V. If you have in fact lost one leg, I'd try: flipping the main breaker off and back on, in case it partially tripped. Check with neighbours on the same transformer to see if they have the same problem. Look for any obvious faults in your power hookup (eg, a tree on the power line). – gregmac Jan 31 '15 at 05:26
  • I flipped the main off then on again and nothing changed. neighbors aren't having any problems. I called Alabama Power and they told me that it could be a breaker being bad cuz its getting a weak connection into the house. when he checked with the voltage meter is was getting 115 in some spots and 240 in others. I know very little about wiring. but i know how to change breakers and plugs lol. i just figure out where the shortage is or what is causing part of the house to loose power. – Melissa Sandvik Jan 31 '15 at 05:38
  • How can u tell if the breaker is bad?? or if its a bad plug somewhere? – Melissa Sandvik Jan 31 '15 at 05:45
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    Have you considered calling an electrician? The power company has nothing to do with the wiring in your house. – Speedy Petey Jan 31 '15 at 14:20

2 Answers2

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Well usually when "half" of something dies in residential electrical, it means one hot leg is down. This could be an issue at the transformer, the wiring to your meter, the meter itself, the wiring from the meter to your main panel, the main breaker or a fault within your panel.

It is pretty easy to test for, you're just looking for 240v at the service entrance. If you get 240v there, the issue is downstream in your house wiring. If not then it's likely a utility issue. Testing does however require testing live circuits.

Since it doesn't sound like you have the experience to troubleshoot this safely, your best bet is to contact a qualified electrician. It might be necessary to then contact the utility depending on the outcome.

Steven
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    The term "half" is profoundly misused in situations like this. Where people say "half my house is out" more times than not it is only one circuit. – Speedy Petey Jan 31 '15 at 19:50
  • Possible. I actually did have an entire leg fail once. Either way the OP probably needs an electrician. – Steven Jan 31 '15 at 20:01
  • Of course it happens. Happens quite often with bad legs form the poco or bad main breakers. I was just speaking from experience about how folks describe things. ;) – Speedy Petey Feb 01 '15 at 15:35
  • I've had an entire leg fail 3 different times. Once a short (and near fire) in the main panel, once a leg came off the pole, and another time one leg came off the side of the house! I've had this happen more often than I've tripped a breaker (never)! – Brian Knoblauch Mar 18 '17 at 16:33
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Check for a tripped (or faulty) GFCI outlet. If power is being fed through it, then you'd see your results.

Aloysius Defenestrate
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