Outlet now dead

Question

An outlet in the garage was used in the winter to run an electric snowblower. The extension cord used once ended up in a flowing gutter so it popped a breaker. OK. Moved the cord, reset the breaker. Reset GFI on the same wall as outlet. No power.

The outlet is on an exterior wall of the garage that also has a light switch. The GFI outlet is also dead, but a GFI tester will trip it. The light on the switch works. There are no tripped breakers. All GFI have been reset. Still no power to that outlet nor the GFI on the same wall. There is another untripped GFI on the back wall of the garage - it has power.

Where else to look?

Answer 1

I am going to suggest something you can check. The original current surge that resulted in the circuit breaker to trip may have also stressed a poke in wire connection somewhere in the circuit. Poke in wire connections rely on the spring tension in the contact to create a solid low impedance connection. Over current can cause heating of the contact and loss of spring tension.

Turn off the power at the entrance panel and then take a look at the various outlets and switches in the circuit that is not working to see if any poke in connections were used. (Hint you may want to consider changing these over to components that use screw terminals to secure the wires).