What to Do when the Electrical Outlet in the Bathroom Doesn't Work

If you are in the middle of blow drying your hair and lose power to one or more electrical outlets in the bathroom, you may have tripped the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (known as a GFCI ).

The purpose of the GFCI is to protect a person from shock by shutting off electricity to the outlet when it registers an imbalance of electricity. These special outlets are usually installed in areas where the risks of electric shock tend to be the highest, such as in bathrooms, kitchens, near hot tubs, jacuzzis, or in garages. A GFCI receptacle look like a normal outlet except with one difference ~ in between the two outlets are two little rectangular buttons that read "test" and "reset".

In my house it's appliances like the blow dryer, small space heater, or the vacuum cleaner which trips the GFCI in our bathroom and shuts off the power to the wall outlets. I've learned from experience that resetting a tripped GFCI switch is a simple home repair that any adult can do once he knows where the look.

Resetting a tripped GFCI outlet in the bathroom

In bathrooms with updated electrical circuits, outlets are either GFCI receptacles (with the test & reset buttons) or GFCI protected. In my home, the GFCI protected outlets are labeled as such with a small black sticky label. Yours may or may not be labeled.

1. If the outlet is a GFCI receptacle, unplug the appliance and press the "reset" button with your fingernail or the tip of a non-conducting plastic utensil. This should restore electricity back to the bathroom outlet.

2. If the outlet is either labeled as "GFCI protected" or is unlabeled you may have to do a little hunting around for the reset outlet. Smaller bathrooms are usually wired on a single circuit which is protected by a single GFCI receptacle usually found in the bathroom. It's anyone's guess where the outlet is placed; mine is partially blocked by the toilet near the floor and somewhat easy to miss. In older homes where GFCI receptacle were retrofitted, the GFCI might be even be in the room on the other side of your bathroom wall.

Once the GFCI receptacle for the bathroom has been located, pressing the "reset" button should restore power to all those outlets. If this doesn't work, it's possible that the bathroom is serviced by two receptacles which means it's back to hunting for that other outlet.

resources:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/question117.htm