Electrical Industry Canada: Test & Measurement Issue - 4

PROVE IT: TROUBLESHOOTING LOSS OF
POWER ON A RESIDENTIAL SERVICE CALL
BY LANCE GIESBRECHT
Lance Giesbrecht is a Master Electrician and Owner/Operator of ELG Electric along with his wife, Melanie.
Servicing the Goderich, ON area's residential, agricultural, and commercial industries.
" With our testing and measurement on the job, obviously every situation differs, " said Giesbrecht, but we
asked him to discuss his approach to troubleshooting electrical failures for a typical residential client, while
also discussing the tools that prefers to use.
Customer calls and has lost power to an outlet or fixture. However, the breaker is not showing tripped or
a fault, and has been proven operational.
Our common practice is obviously narrowing down the search. Myself I use the Ideal Industries 3 light plug
tester. Simple, easy, fast. We obviously test the outlet with the issue first. By opening the device plate and
pulling the receptacle out of the wall we can test if the issue is local or ahead of the device. Here, using a digital
multimeter (DMM) or a clamp meter with multi functions, I use the Ideal Industries Tightsight 660 Amp clamp
meter. In my experience, it is the best and most functional meter. With this tester we would be looking to test for
power (voltage AC " VAC " ), between hot, neutral, and bond (ground for simplicity).
At this point, lets assume that the tests show there is no power at the device and that we need to look further
upstream to find the issue.
We have two options with this circumstance, we can do a visual inspection of the room and work off of " best
guess " and try our luck with random selection. We go to the nearest device and remove it from the wall as well.
There, testing for VAC, we prove if it is on the same circuit as the problem receptacle (again this takes some
tracing and tracking), and if it has power or not. If we have power, we make a note of it, if we don't find power,
we add it to the list of failed devices. From here we turn off the circuit and proceed to do a continuity test using
the clamp meter (this is an audible test that allows us to prove if two points are of the same potential, meaning
a continuous loop). With the circuit off, we test from wire to wire between the two boxes (the original failed
receptacle and the next nearest used for testing), going one by one and then often a combination there of e.g.
black-black, white-white, bare-bare then often touching the conductors to the box or " Ground " and testing
them through to prove we have the correct wire.

ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY CANADA

Tightsight 660
Amp Clamp Meter

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

http://elgelectric.ca/ http://elgelectric.ca/

Electrical Industry Canada: Test & Measurement Issue

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