Calling CP Electricians

[Circa89]

I don't normally mess with electricity, however I will go as far as to replace a wall socket or install a new light, fan , hood fan etc. as long as all I am doing is disconnecting wires and reattaching to a new item.

Issue. I bought a USB wall outlet, 2 plugs , 2 USB outlets. I disconnected the old counter plug, Installed this new fancy unit. I guess I did it wrong because I connected both hotwires and the white.
I should have installed 1 and 1 and capped the other hotwire.

Now I have reverted back to the original counter wall plug and NADA. The circuit breaker will not flip back on.

Did I blow the circuit Breaker? Do I have to replace that now?

[llwhiteoutll]

Have you tied to fully cycle the breaker?

[Circa89]

Yes, I have and it immediately flips back to off, or shuts the power to the whole house off.
Faulty Circuit breaker now?

[PaperBagger'14]

My phone is acting weird but I'll make a post later. Don't keep turning the breaker on though.

[Fuzz]

Is this a split outlet? Sounds like you have a fault somewhere if it is flipping back off.

[Circa89]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Is this a split outlet? Sounds like you have a fault somewhere if it is flipping back off.

It's not a 3 way, but has a dedicated switch. It does have two hits and one white leading into it. Counter plug

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by Circa89

Yes, I have and it immediately flips back to off, or shuts the power to the whole house off.
Faulty Circuit breaker now?

Sounds like it is time to get an electrician to come out. If the entire panel is tripping, that doesn't sound right.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Circa89

Yes, I have and it immediately flips back to off, or shuts the power to the whole house off.
Faulty Circuit breaker now?

Just to be sure we are on the same page, you are moving the tripped breaker to the "off" position first and THEN back to on, yes?

[Circa89]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Just to be sure we are on the same page, you are moving the tripped breaker to the "off" position first and THEN back to on, yes?

It is fully off, not mid way. It can't get more off to start with.

[PaperBagger'14]

You have to break the tie in the plug on the hot side only. Look at your old plug next to the screws and notice the tab that's broken.

[Fuzz]

Is this what you have going on?


Paperbagger is the expert here...but it sounds like this may have been the original setup? When you put the old one back in, did you maybe hook the hots and the neutral to the wrong sides?

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Is this what you have going on?


Paperbagger is the expert here...but it sounds like this may have been the original setup? When you put the old one back in, did you maybe hook the hots and the neutral to the wrong sides?

This is exactly It, break that tab but only on the hot side. You're getting a phase to phase fault

[Northendzone]

are you sure you have the wires to the correct side of the plug - as I recall the black wires go to the brass side and the white go to silver.

[Locke]

I thought you were calling a CP 'Election' and thought 'not here too!'

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Circa89

Installed this new fancy unit. I guess I did it wrong because I connected both hotwires and the white.
I should have installed 1 and 1 and capped the other hotwire.

This is not a 3 way switch type circuit.
Kitchen counter plugs have 2 circuits going to them, one to the top and one to the bottom. The little connector between the screws on the hot side should be snapped out and both sets of hot/neutral wires should be connected to each side, if you only have one neutral that is okay. If you didn't snap out that connector and then hooked up both hots then that's probably your issue.


By the way, if you were only flipping one breaker off it's surprising you didn't shock yourself or short out a wire accidently.

[Erick Estrada]

Jacks is correct. Each receptacle receives its own hot lead.

[Fuzz]

Hopefully the lack of response isn't because something bad happened...

[Circa89]

Sorry had to go to work. I'll have a look at this and see if I can tackle this tonight.

Thanks for the help

[Fuzz]

Stupid work!

[81MC]

With the collective skill and knowledge on CP, it could kind of function like a working wiki-how.