Why don't the lights in part of my house work?

Question

The lights don't work in a quarter of the house. Outlets do. All of the breakers are not tripped. My father said it happened when lightning hit the house, but I see no damage to the house. Feel free to get as technical as needed, I am an engineer.

Answer 1

Troubleshooting on line isn't easy.  But here goes.The fastest and easiest is to call a qualified professional electrician. Start at the panel and observe the connections to the breakers and the neutral buss. Use an analog meter or solenoid type to do the testing. From the breaker to the neutral buss you should have 120 volts +/- 5%  is ok.  Try to locate the circuit that feeds the lights,  it may take a ammeter on the circuit and some very careful testing. Once the circuit is identified, locate the nearest light fixture to the panel, turn off the power,  and remove the switch first and inspect it.  The next step is to remove the light fixture in that room and inspect the wires in the box. If these are without damage, go to the next closest room to the panel and inspect the fixture and it's conn box. When the power was turned off you may have had more lights go out. this shows only part of the circuit was damaged and it is not likely a problem in the power panel.  This is best handled by a qualified professional electrician who is used to doing this type of troubleshooting.  Electrical work is very logical, if you understand it.   A digital meter or an inductive probe are too sensitive to spurious voltages that may be induced by close wires or a broken neutral. The broken neutral, will read as a complete circuit if the wire is close enough, but it will not let a light come on.

Answer 2

is it an old house??

the reason i ask is because my friend had the same problem--turned out that there were two boxes--1 breaker box and 1 old fuse box and a fuse had blown in the fuse box--the fuse box was hidden up in the kitchen cabinets

Answer 3

if it is a mobile home, check the GFCI outlets....

Answer 4

Maybe a burned wire, especially if lightning was involved.

If some of the breakers operate only the light circuits the breakers could be bad.  You can take them out, disconnect the wires and ohm test them.

If you can trace the wires for the lights to a point where they do work maybe start checking for burn marks.

To ohm test a breaker turn it on and check from the point where it contacts the buss bar to the terminal for the wire, should get a closed circuit.