AC power leaving the circuit breaker, but no AC power to AC power supply line in bathroom (and this bathroom is head/lead in daisy chain)

Question

Background:

1) Guest Bathroom lone receptacle is GFCI. This lone receptacle is the lead receptacle in daisy chain to 3 downstream receptacles in Master Bath. House built in 2001; builder did it this way.

Incident: Wife plugged hair dryer into the end of line receptacle in Master Bath; circuit outage occurred. The dedicated circuit breaker (labeled “Bath GFCI”) for this circuit did not appear to trip. Reset Bath GFCI circuit breaker regardless AND every other individual circuit breaker AND then the master breaker.

2) Used multimeter to test (3 times) the dedicated circuit breaker for “Bath GFCI” in the panel (in addition to every other circuit breaker in the panel) – all appear to functioning.

3) Mutlimeter shows 120V leaving the “Bath GFCI” circuit breaker for this circuit. However, no AC power to the Guest Bathroom wiring.

Special Note: Cannot locate an upstream receptacle to Guest Bathroom - we checked every other receptacle in the entire house – all are functioning (including those that are GFCI) except of course for the three receptacles in Master Bath (which are downstream to the Guest Bath for the GFCI daisy chain configuration).

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Question/Issue: If proper 120v AC power is leaving the circuit breaker that is dedicated for this “Bath GFCI” circuit, why is there no AC voltage/power coming into the Guest Bath power supply/hot/lead line wiring (which ultimately feeds the Master Bath receptacles)? Note that I removed the GFCI receptacle/outlet from the Guest Bath and there is no AC power coming into the actual power supply/hot/lead line wiring. Tested with multimeter and voltage tester.

I have since put wire caps on the exposed wiring in the Guest Bathroom and shut off the circuit breaker in case the power to the line is miraculously restored by divine intervention (or an electrician). This is nuts. And thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

Answer 1

First, I want to thank those of you who responded with the excellent advice. And after checking the continuity as suggested, there was continuity!

However, there was no continuity of the neurons in my brain until when I realized that the two upstairs bathroom receptacles may be upstream on the same daisy chain 20A circuit for the two downstairs bathrooms. They were- I am an idiot.

But in my neophyte defense, the electrical panel had two separate circuits dedicated to these two upstairs bathrooms labeled "Upstairs bath #1" and "Upstairs bath #2". I assumed they were for the receptacles and lighting. Clearly the upstairs bathroom lights and receptacles don't share the same circuit as most don't want the lights to go out when the GFCI trips the receptacles.

To keep two separate GFCI branches on the circuit (one branch for the two upstairs bathrooms, and one branch for the two downstairs bathrooms), the hot line and neutral wire from the electrical panel goes to upstairs bath #1 GFCI receptacle. The lines are inserted into the proper respective line holes on the back of the receptacle (they are clamp and screw, not pure backstab). However, there is also another neutral/hot pair (from/to the downtairs guest bath GFCI receptacle) that is connected into the respective line holes on the back of the upstairs bath #1 GFCI receptacle. So I have two neutrals and two blacks into the line side screw/clamp holes of the upstairs bath#1 GFCI receptacle. And on the same upstairs bath #1 receptacle is the load wire connection to provide GFCI protection to the downstream bathroom #2 receptacle.

This was maddening to figure out, but I understand it.

I had to replace the upstairs Bath #1 (the "workhorse" supply power splitting, load carrying) GFCI receptacle because the hot/black line insert/hole carrying power to the downstairs guest bathroom was shot. Why was it shot? Likely because of my wife taxing, for the past three years, the 20AMP circuit and our master bath 15 AMP outlet (on the same circuit) with: (1) her overpriced salon hair dryer (which could dry a Wookie in seconds flat and sounds like an F14 engine), (2) and a "hair flattener" curling iron device, and (3) a clothes iron - all on and running at the same time! She had a small mini three outlet strip plugged into the 15Amp outlet to run all of these items at the same time. The mini three outlet strip is now in the trash. I had no idea she throwing that many amps (at the same time) at the circuit and the outlet! And I installed a 20AMP receptacle in our master bathroom and explained why we don't want to turn all those high amp items on at the same time on the same circuit.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks again for the excellent advice.

thanks.

Answer 2

do what he said and if you have cont. between the wires then you have another problem somewhere. i would check to make sure that you are correct on the fact that its the 1st one in the chain. just the fact that it reset says something. usually without power they don't. you may have to get a wire tracer to find it. are there any more outlets between the 2. i would check those just to make sure they didn't get caught on the circuit.

Answer 3

I find this problem on daisy chained receptacles quite often where back stabs are used. Check the last working receptacle with power off remove and pull on the hot black wire and white neutral. If either comes out or looks burned on the insulation that is where the problem is. From your question I thought the GFCI had power and was ok? If nothing is working and the GFCI is the first outlet it could be the supply connection burned or broke off. The last possibility is newer GFCI outlets fail open if the circuitry in the GFCI has failed it will not power itself or the load terminals. You can check for 120 at the terminals to verify this.