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I have lived in my home for several years now and have slowing been updating things as we go.

It came time to swap out some old ivory GFCI outlets for white ones. I made the mistake of replacing multiple of them all at once.

Our bathroom has two vanities, each with a GFCI, and the hall bathroom also has one. Everything had power and worked great until after I swapped everything out matching up the load and line wires etc. (I am not a professional so I could have wired them wrong). When the power was turned back on there was no power to any of the GFCI's that I had replaced. I tested with a plug meter, with a trusty regular voltmeter and there is no power to any of the three outlets. Upon looking at the wiring in my attic it does appear these all run on the same circuit.

I reset the breakers multiple times, but different outlets back on all to no avail. It sounds similar to some other post but what do I do if there is no power to any box?

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  • General FYI: GFCI receptacles aren't needed at every location on the same downstream circuit unless it's for convenience because the outlets are in different rooms/far away locations, as the upstream GFCI protects all downstream receptacles on the same circuit. Wiring is hard to mix up since GFCI receptacles use the top connection for load and the bottom for line, with warning stickers usually covering the top load terminals. Did you verify if the first GFCI in the circuit had it's Test button reset, as usually the Reset needs to be done on all freshly installed GFCI receptacles?
    – JW0914
    May 26 at 12:13
  • cont'd... If the primary and downstream receptacles have been Reset and trip again, I start at the primary and work downstream. If the GFCI immediately trips within seconds of the breaker being flipped, check the neutrals, as a neutral from another circuit being tied into the neutral of a separate circuit w/ GFCI will cause the GFCI to almost immediately trip due to a current mismatch on the incoming line and outgoing neutral. Some also choose to wire a circuit with a shared neutral and often don't mark this on the breaker. Grounds can be shared across all circuits, but neutrals can't.
    – JW0914
    May 26 at 12:25

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I am going to guess that you have miswired something. I think at this point, the best solution is going to be:

  • Turn off the power
  • Remove all but one of the outlets, and temporarily protect the resulting bare wires (wrap in electrical tape, insert into choc-block connector, etc.).
  • Remove the final outlet and leave the wires bare
  • Get an assistant to run the power back on.
  • Check that the voltages of the bare wires are as you expect. If not, try and diagnose why.
  • Get the assistant to turn the power back off
  • Fit the outlet
  • Restore power
  • Check it has power.

Then repeat the above for each of the remaining outlets.

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