I am not electrician. I am a DIYer and have some experience with replacing breakers, doing basic electrical work, but nothing really "advanced".
An outlet was recently cracked, and my roommate went to replace it while I wasn't home. I am told he didn't turn off the breaker, but when I came home nothing on that circuit was working. I had assumed the breaker was broken from not turning it off, so I replaced it with a new one. Still not working. I checked to make sure the new outlet was wired correctly, and it was.
It's the second outlet in the circuit, I think. It is second closest to the breaker box, so I assume it is second in the circuit.
Anyway, does anyone think I should get an electrician, or can I at least rule out some other causes, or fix this myself?
Best Answer
If you are correct that nothing on that circuit is working (including an outlet closer to the circuit breaker panel) then something would appear to be wrong at the panel.
I wonder if perhaps you got the wrong breaker and the actual breaker for this circuit is sitting in the tripped position? Sometimes it can be useful to flip each breaker on and off one at a time (of course that can play havoc with whatever else is on those circuits, such as computers wot don't have a UPS).
If it was only that outlet and ones further down I would suspect that the incoming wires are not correctly connected or the outlets have been separated by breaking off the tabs between the two receptacles.