Electrical Follies

Nothing is more fun than when you have to battle issues...in your own home.

HZG had an interesting issue occur yesterday. Mrs. HZG has a crew come and give the house a "once over" ever 2 weeks to help her in keeping a clean ship. I received a call from the crew stating that the vacuum cleaner was plugged into an outlet in our bathroom and it must have shorted out the fixture. The light was now out; bathroom fan, out; bedroom light, out. The gentleman that called stated that he checked the breakers and everything was OK.

Mrs. HZG arrived home and I called to warn her of this issue. I asked her to please verify that the breakers were all on and correct. She did and they were. So I called Fixit Guy to see if he could come over and diagnose the problem. It was late on Friday, so I asked him if he could come on Saturday afternoon - we could deal with the lighting issue for a day. Fixit Guy asked if the breaker was tripped and I stated that 2 independent sources verified it was. Why didn't HZG fix it? HZG doesn't do electricity...

Fixit Guy shows up with a GFCI outlet (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter). He states that typically if a GFCI goes bad, all that connects through it goes bad as well. He disassembled the existing GFCI and used his powerful electricity detector to tell me he thinks he knows what the issue is. He goes to the basement and MAGIC...the lights come on.

What was the problem? The breaker wasn't flipped into place. Mrs. HZG could have gotten an earful...however it is much my issue as hers. The last person I remember saying this line was former President Ronald Reagan..."Trust, but verify..."

Lesson Learned.

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