Ran into a problem splicing and outlet

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smaki5929

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So my girlfriends dad built a shed next to there house and wanted electric ran to the shed. Well I have electrical experience so I offered to do it for him as a favor as long as he bought all the materials. So I decided I was going to splice and outlet they had on there front porch because that was the easiest option (as it seemed to be anyways). So when I spliced the outlet and ran the other wire to the shed, I hooked the outlets up in the shed that he wanted and so I wanted to give them a quick test. I go to the breaker box and flip the breaker back on for the outlet that I had just spliced. When I went and checked the voltage at the outlet I spliced I noticed I wasn't getting anything, not even the slightest amount of voltage. I took the outlet covering and stuff back off and unhooked all the wires. I then took my multi meter and touched the two original hot and neutral wires that were there to begin with. I got absolutely nothing. At this point I am stumped. I know its not a bad breaker because that run also powers the living room outlets and tv. I just don't know how the outlet could go from working to not working just like that and to not even be getting power or any voltage from the original wires.... I don't know what to do or where to even start. I checked every thing I possibly could at the time and I still didn't find a solution.
 
Welcome.

Assuming you verified there was power and a working outlet you "spliced" off of, before you started, and you GFCI protected the outlets in the shed.

The power comes from somewhere, so you need to open all the boxes "you suspect" are fed by this breaker. You can do this by resistance and the OHM function, purchase a circuit tester, or simply by visual inspection.
 
Since you tapped into an outlet (receptacle) on the front porch it is very highly possible that that receptacle may be GFCI protected and when you worked on the receptacle the GFCI upstream may have tripped. Mind you this would not trip the breaker also if it sensed a ground fault.

This may not be the problem but I would highly suggest that before you go beating yourself over the head in frustration that you look for every single GFCI receptacle at your girlfriend's dad's house. Does not matter where it is, make sure any GFCIs you find you make sure they are not tripped. Press the reset buttons. Since you did not mention that the receptacle you tapped into on the front porch was a GFCI receptacle then this leads me to this possibility. Since this is not your home I would look everywhere because since you don't live there you may not be aware of all the GFCI locations in the home. I have been to homes where the home owner said there were no more to be found and I found one behind boxes in the garage, attic, floor joist in the basement. Look everywhere.
 
I vote for a GFCI somewhere else also. Could be in the garage, somewhere else outside, bathroom, basement.
 
It could be anyplace in the house but the first place to look is at the outlet on the other side of the porch wall inside the house.

It is pretty common when someone wants an outlet outside to go straight thru the wall and pick up power and then add the GFCI inside.
 

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