Electrical outlets not working?! - How to Fix

At TVE, we have dedicated several videos to troubleshooting outlets not working. That's because electricity is fickle and there is a lot that can go wrong in an electrical circuit. In this video, we will focus on outlets not working because of heavy electrical loads. Space heaters, workout equipment, and Christmas lights are an example of this. We probably get 100 calls each winter from outlets and electrical circuits being damaged from space heaters. A lot of times space heaters require a dedicated circuit. So if you plug one into an existing 15 amp circuit, its only a matter of time before it causes damages. It also depends on how your electrician wired your house. If they stabbed the electrical wire into the back of the electrical receptacle instead of wrapping it around the screw then this is going to fail. Its not a matter of if, but when. The first place to start if you have your outlet go out is at the outlet itself. If you inspect the outlet and everything looks ok then head over to the electrical panel. You may have a loose connection at the breaker or the neutral bar. Visit the virtual electrician if you need help troubleshooting your electrical devices.

[DanielSanchez-chzs]

Great video...short and to the point. I didn't need to sit through an explanation of Ohm's law, you just gave well-explained concise advice. Thanks!

[sirmalo]

What a life saver (and money saver) your video was for me. I couldn’t figure out why the outlets would not work in my two back bedrooms until you went through the causes related to space heaters. This was exactly my issue with a short power outage at the house and a space heater that was plugged in. I shut the breaker off, took off the outlet cover and outlet plugin to find the area slightly burnt/plastic melted around one of the wires. I’m so thankful this didn’t spark a fire BUT it did cause all the outlets tied to that power wire to not work. I changed out the outlet and true magic now my outlets are all working again.

I am however changing those outlets to a gfi outlet just in case another power outage occurs to minimize risk of fire.

Thanks again for your helpful video!

[sarahanderson]

Great Video! I just replaced an outlet that had black marks from a space heater

[passionvintage]

Hi can you help me out please? Thank you for the videos.

So about couple months now it all started from the master bedroom light and a wall outlet on one wall that stopped working. Then since then electrical around the house stopped working. For instances, the kitchen one wall with an outlet where we plugged the fridge and microwave suddenly stopped working. Then we used an extension cord on the other wall (left side) where sink is so it can reach the fridge…it worked but keeps going out and we thought maybe it’s cause the extension cord is heavy and may not plug in tight and we wiggled as we wiggle it will turn on and off so we taped it to hold in place…that outlet now is dead too. Then now I have a different extension cord with just 1 plug I use to plug the fridge in and it connected to the outlet on the right side of the sink where the disposal switch is (oh and the disposal doesn’t work but has power maybe that just need replacement), anyways and from there just last night the outlet on the wall facing the front door stopped working and an outlet on the left of that wall only 1 plug outlet works but can clearly see black things like it exploded so I unplug it now today after I saw how dark the damage is and same night last night the dining room and kitchen lights (both separate areas) stopped working, hallway bathroom light stopped working, my sons room light and outlets are not working.

I watched YouTube how to check using a multimeter and I have one that from harbor freight called cen tech a red one and I set it to ACV 750 and tested the dark one that looks blown up and top plug one comes out at 125 and bottom plug zero reading or no numbers come on and it doesn’t work when attempted to plug something in to test only top one works. Then as I went to test the wall outlet in the dining room I inserted the black lead probe on the left of plug and RIGHT when I inserted the RED lead probe in at first no reading so I thought maybe I didn’t put in far to where probe is not making contact so I push a little and the outlet SPARKED in my face and outlet is also black now with the right side of the hole looking so much bigger! Like it suppose to look like a parallel line but now it’s a circle. And the multimeter the red probe metal part is damage.

Do you think you can help me? I have reset all the gfi 1 main one that turns the other 2 on I guess cause if the main gfi isn’t on the other 2 will not reset at all. Other 2 gfi only lets me reset and actually clicks if I reset the main one that has the red and black button. I also checked the power panel switch box outside to see if any of those switch are in the middle and all are turn on but I did turn off and on all switches that said ;lighting, kitchen, washer and dryer, etc. still none of the lights work and outlet still not working.

We have home warranty and already requested service but taking too long. I’ve contacted the service company and left a message as they have not even contact me for an appointment.

[lucianoromero]

My wires don’t look burnt and I changed the outlets and nothing still, breaker isn’t tripped either nor is the fuse broken

[krazy-chicken]

We can’t run air fryer and microwave at the same time. Normally it just trips the breaker. My 9 year old forgot and turned on the microwave while the air fryer was on. The breaker didn’t trip. I turned the breaker off then on. It didn’t return power to the wall. I replaced the breaker and still didn’t work. Could it be the outlet the microwave or air fryer is plugged into?

[yartriesthis]

@TVE I had issues with one wall outlet cause other wall outlets not working, like loose wiring in wall outlets makes other outlets with in the circuit not to work?

[paulgermain]

My dining room has four receptacles (outlets). Two of the receptacles have power and two do not. None are on a wall switch. There are no breakers tripped in my main electrical panel. There are no GFCI or ACFI on those receptacles. Have not been able to troubleshoot given this situation.

[sandeepsinghdugh]

Hello TVE,
I replaced an outlet ( Leviton T5320-W) in my kitchen and test it, start working, then I cut the power off from main switch to wrap-up the fitting of the outlet. but when I turn the main switch on again from main panel and check again then it stop working and there were 2 more outlets stop working either. then i replaced circuit breaker and all three outlets but there is no power in all three outlets. I check with multimeter, tester and with receptacle tester there is no power. so where I need to dig now. help me please. thank you

[maryjuanarasta]

What causes half my outlets to have open hot reading?

[billballoo]

How can you have voltage on an outlet but there's no power to anything from the outlet?

[idklol]

My house is wired with cat5e and was built in 2007. I plugged an ethernet cable into the wall outlet and I don't receive signal, how do I fix this? Ive tried plugging it directly into the router, and it works, but my router is down stairs and I want ethernet upstairs without running a really long cable.

[RileyAndBellaShorthairs]

I had multiple sockets not working it turns out it was a loose hot and I had 20 sockets daisy chained to one circuit

[josephherron]

I thought you said you were "troubleshooting outlets" in this video. You didn't troubleshoot a damn thing. You talked about what COULD be wrong. Not what IS wrong. That's not troubleshooting, that's guessing.