An Electrical Outlet Knocked Out Power to Half of the House

Tripped Fuse

• If you used a greater amount of power than an outlet can handle, it might have tripped a fuse. Your circuit breaker is designed to turn the electricity off to certain areas of the house if too much power goes into a particular outlet to prevent electrical fires and electric shocks. Thus, if you've lost electricity in half your house, you should check your circuit breaker for tripped fuses and turn them back to the on position. If you don't see any tripped fuses, try pushing each fuse to the "off" position then turning it back on. Some circuit breakers are built so that it isn't obvious when fuses are tripped, so doing this can catch a tripped fuse.

Reset Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters

• Some outlets in your home contain ground fault circuit interrupters, or GFCIs. These outlets are often found in kitchens, bathrooms and garages. They are designed to protect you from electrocution by turning off the electricity if there is a large power surge of ungrounded electricity. These outlets have a reset button on them. If the power surge passes, you can turn the electricity back on by pressing the reset button.

Testing GFCIs

• Most GFCIs have a "test" button in addition to the reset button. The test button's purpose is to make sure the GFCI is working properly to protect you. If you press the test button, all the outlets affected by the GFCI will stop working until you press the reset button. Thus, if somebody in your house accidentally presses the test button on a GFCI, you may lose power in the outlets in half your house. You can remedy this by pressing the reset button on any GFCI whose test button is depressed.

What to Do

• If several power outlets in your house appear to have stopped working, check your circuit breaker. If there are no tripped fuses and resetting all your fuses doesn't resolve the problem, you need to check your GFCIs. There's no way to tell which GFCI caused an electrical outage, but if you were using a device in a particular room when the outage occurred, start with the outlet you were using. Reset all your GFCIs until the electricity comes off. If resetting all your GFCIs doesn't solve the problem, call an electrician.