I have a 50 year old house. I am remodeling the bath. Today, I go to
plug in a small compressor into a standard outlet and then I lose
power in this bath, part of the accompanying bedroom (3 walls of it)
and another bedroom. The circuit breaker did not flip and to be sure,
I flipped them all off and on once but power was not restored. I go
out into the hall, where there is a three way switch operating an
overhead light, and when I turn this switch on, the light dims then
gets really really bright, and it also seems to turn on items in the
2nd bedroom that lost power. I have opened all of the outlets and made
sure they are wired correctly. Did the same thing with the light
switches and replaced the three way switch with a new one. Did not
work. Also, looked under house to make sure no water dripping on
wires, crawled in attic, nothing unusual and the walls are cool to
touch as are the outlets and switches.

Any ideas of what I can do first before calling an electrician?
Thank you.

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Request for Question Clarification by denco-ga on 17 Jul 2005 18:49 PDT

Howdy sboyd4-ga,

If there is one breaker for the affected area, then the first thing to
do is to replace the breaker and see if that fixes things. Breakers do
go bad in strange ways.

After doing the above, please report back here.  Thanks!

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher

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Clarification of Question by sboyd4-ga on 17 Jul 2005 19:25 PDT

This particular breaker operates other parts of our which are not
affected at all, can this still be the cause?

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Request for Question Clarification by denco-ga on 18 Jul 2005 11:03 PDT

Howdy sboyd4-ga,

With the further information that you provided, your conditions appear to
be similar to the ones described on the following web page.
http://wilberelectrical.blogspot.com/

In the case above, the problem was a "highly corroded splice in the neutral
conductor at the service entrance connection point" so it might not be an
obvious condition in your case.

As myoarin-ga comments, it could be a short somewhere that was caused by
an overload on the circuit, a bad ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI)
or a bad arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) someplace.

In other word, the "really really bright" light is probably a bad sign of
a short or corroded/bad ground connection someplace in the circuit.  If you
feel comfortable with continuing the diagnostic process, then you can start
bypassing/removing portions of the circuit until the "bright" symptom goes
away, and that might isolate the problem portion of the circuit.

Otherwise, get an electrician in as soon as possible.  There is a problem
someplace, and if it is a short, then it is a big problem just waiting to
happen.

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher

I'm no electrician, but it sounds as though attaching the compressor
overloaded the old wiring and caused a short circuit somewhere, maybe
another one occurring when you turned on that light that dimmed  -
voltage being drained until the wire heated and made contact again.

But that is just a quess.

You have lost your neutral to part of the house. First I would replace
the outlet where the problem started. Then be sure there are no breaks
in the splices, usually in a wire-nut device, on your neutral (usually
white) wires. turn off all switches and breakers. Turn off the
breakers that service that entire area of the house. If you touch the
open neutral, and more than one circuit shares the neutral, current
could back up through other devices that use that neutral.