So we recently had the whole front side of the house outlets stop working. At first I thought it was a GFI, but the GFIs I found and tested all test good and work. There is a GFi on the wall that is out, but it works.
I checked the circuit breaker and have no trip circuits. (I even tried most of them off and back on just to double check).
What am I missing? How does a whole side of a house go dead? What do I do/check next?
There may be a loose connection on one of the two hot legs coming into the service panel. Sometimes it happens in the panel itself, more often it happens outside the house at the utility transformer.
Is this just one circuit? If so I'd start pulling covers at the box closest to the breaker. Go from there.
I've seen a GFCI outlet self test good but not put out voltage on the load connection.
two ways half a house can go bad...
One you lose a circuit. This is easy to fix and find, pull the outlets and check for burnt, disconnected, or broken wiring. Also if you have power at the outlet, but the outlet is non-op, you might have a bad outlet.
Two, you dropped a leg. This can be at the panel, meter, or even the pole. All, (or at least most) houses have two "legs" or phases coming in. This allows for more balanced power and gives you 220v (240v) for your appliances. If the appliances are fine, I doubt you dropped a leg
When you say the GFCI on the 'bad wall' works do you mean that if you plug something into it, there is power or do mean the test and reset buttons seem to function properly?
It could be that the outlets that are out are all protected by the GFCI and a wire off the load side of the GFCI worked its way loose. If there is power at the GFCI receptacle, I would open the breaker and pull it out of the wall and inspect the wires on the load side of it.
You don't mention or describe using something like this to check for power, so I'd suggest you get one.
Start wherever and check for power going back to the breaker box. When you go from not having power to having power, that's where the problem lies.
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