I just read the Breaktime post “Help with a dead outlet” in the January ’03 FHB #152.

I am curious if the problem was ever solved.  Was it a new or recently remodeled home?  A couple of years ago I built a new upper end rental home.  I trimmed out the electrical myself, about a year after it was roughed in by another guy.  All went well until about a week before my new tennants (5 year lease) were to move in.  I had been going through the punch list and was testing each outlet with a circuit tester.  The very last receptacle in the last bedroom didn’t work.  I worked through every senerio given in the “Breaktime” postings and it still didn’t work.  I was dumbfounded.  Finally in my desperation I remembered I had photo cataloged every step of the construction.  Off to the photo album.  There I found my problem.  Back in the bedroom I looked closely at the wall.  Sure enough there was a slight bulge under the sheetrock.  The drywall crew in their haste had burried the box for the second to the last receptacle.  Using the photo I quickly located and cut out the box.  I installed the outlet.  Problem solved.

Clint