Sharp Electrical Cutoff May Be Blown Circuit

Question: Our house is 40 years old. In my bedroom bath, we have a four-way lamppost light fixture that holds four 60-watt bulbs. I was blow-drying my hair using a 1,500-watt dryer and I heard a pop.

All electric power in the bath cut off sharply and now nothing comes on and the light switch seems looser. No other part of the house was affected. Could you tell me what happened and what we can do?

Answer: We can only assume what happened. It sounds like you overloaded the circuit in your bathroom.

If your hairdryer and the lamppost were plugged into the same receptacle, chances are you blew a ground fault circuit interrupter, or GFI, or a fuse.

If you have checked the fuse panel and found that all is OK, you must start looking for the GFI breaker that controls the circuit for your bathroom.

A GFI receptacle contains its own breaker system (two plugs with two buttons in the center). One button tests the circuit and the other resets it.

The GFI breaker isn’t always in the room where everything goes off. Sometimes the breaker is in a different bathroom or in the garage.

If you can’t picture what a GFI breaker looks like, go to a hardware store and ask to be shown one.

From now on, try to limit other electricity use while using the hairdryer.

*

For more information check the Careys’ Web site at https://www.onthehouse.com.