GFCI toast?

[neoh]

I was in the living room yesterday evening, and noticed that our kitchen lights turned off and on again, on two separate occasions within 10 minutes.

Then, I turned the kitchen lights off, and was heading to bed - walked by the tank the last time and just as I stepped in my bedroom I heard the 'click!' and the breaker went out.

However; here's the catch. The breaker wasn't tripped. There was no reason for the plug to stop working, as no moisture or water got involved. When I unplugged the power bar from the outlet, I actually got shocked. So, there is electricity! I'll be grabbing my meter from work tomorrow.

Turning the breaker on and off does nothing. I have to run an extension cord to the kitchen outlet to power the tank.

So. Now what? Breaker toast, or is there something else I should be worried about here?

[mike31154]

Tricky trying to troubleshoot something like this, especially remotely without knowing the entire circuit. I'll take a guess though & suspect a loose connection. Based on the symptoms you describe, if your kitchen lights are downstream of the gfci, the loose connection could be there causing the lights to flicker and/or the gfci is indeed toast. Generally when a gfci trips due to a fault, it must be reset manually. This & that fact that you got zapped is what makes me think loose connection. While you're grabbing the meter at work, might be worthwhile getting a replacement gfci at the same time. Trip the breaker manually & pull the gfci for a look see at the connections back there. You can do that now & may not need the meter.