> If a breaker pops, it's easy. You have a box, maybe two if you live in a really huge house. Go there, look for the switch that's not quite lined up, toggle switch, done.
FWIW, you can have the same thing with GFCIs. I recently wired my garage for woodworking and installed all GFCI breakers in the breaker box, so a GFCI trip is just like a regular breaker trip (not that either of those has happened with the new circuits). The GFCI breakers cost about $50/ea [1] and protect the whole circuit.
> GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working.
I once couldn't operate my garage door for a few days. There were no tripped breakers in the box. Eventually, it dawned on me that the circuit was labeled "GFCI" so maybe I should go check the GFCIs in the house, and I found that the GFCI in the upstairs bathroom had tripped. The upstairs GFCI is nowhere near the garage (and in the opposite direction from the breaker box). Since then, I've talked to several people in the area whose houses are wired the same way. I guess GFCIs must have been really expensive in the 80s, when these houses were built.
The moral of this story is that GFCI breakers can save a lot of headache. (Plus, those GFCI outlets are kinda ugly IMO).
FWIW, you can have the same thing with GFCIs. I recently wired my garage for woodworking and installed all GFCI breakers in the breaker box, so a GFCI trip is just like a regular breaker trip (not that either of those has happened with the new circuits). The GFCI breakers cost about $50/ea [1] and protect the whole circuit.
> GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working.
I once couldn't operate my garage door for a few days. There were no tripped breakers in the box. Eventually, it dawned on me that the circuit was labeled "GFCI" so maybe I should go check the GFCIs in the house, and I found that the GFCI in the upstairs bathroom had tripped. The upstairs GFCI is nowhere near the garage (and in the opposite direction from the breaker box). Since then, I've talked to several people in the area whose houses are wired the same way. I guess GFCIs must have been really expensive in the 80s, when these houses were built.
The moral of this story is that GFCI breakers can save a lot of headache. (Plus, those GFCI outlets are kinda ugly IMO).
[1]: I see they're about $60/ea now: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-Homeline-20-Amp-Single-...