Need some electrical help

Alright I need a bit of help. A couple weeks ago my wife was cleaning out the back room of our house. The only things new to the room that were plugged in were a floor lamp (the room is quite dark) and the Dyson vacuum that she was using. They were both plugged into the same outlet. After about 5 minutes poof no more power to about half that room or the overhead light. I was at work she calls me I tell her to check the breakers. She says none of them are tripped.

I get home flip the breakers then flip them back. Still nothing. A bit more searching there is no power to the office that is off that room, though the half bath in the office has power. The store room off that room also has no power to the outlet OR its overhead light. I basically have not had time to really mess with things until now.

There was one of the outlets in the room that the cover plate was off and the plug hanging loose. I bumped that outlet (it is right outside the store room) and the light in the store room came on for a brief second. I bumped it again and there was a spark . I am guessing the black wire side of the outlet touched the side of the metal box when that happened. So I of course thought maybe it was a loose wire at that outlet causing my troubles. It was an old outlet so I decided to swap it out for a new one anyway. So I turn off the breakers swap out the outlets, make sure everything is nice and snug and make sure the plug is remounted properly before flipping the breaker.

Anyway I go flip the breaker hoping for the best and nothing. Still no power. I have searched for an outlet with a GFI and not found one anywhere in the affected area. Even the washer and dryer that are in the same bloody room still work. This place is old and I imagine the wiring is just flat out not that great anymore. But at this point I am kinda lost. Am I down to having to pull every outlet in the room and check them each individually? Is there something else I should be looking for? Problem in the box maybe?

Keep looking for the GFI, other outlets can be daisy chained on them. (I just found that out this past weekend!) I even found an outlet box with no outlets but with just the GFI buttons.

I have searched and searched and not found a GFI. Heck I havn't even found one in the outlets IN the bathroom . Did I mention this place was old?

I wonder if a weak connection (just a few wire strands screwed on) burned out somewhere before the breaker could be tripped. Vacuums use quite a lot of power.

Thought about that but everything I have found so far is solid fairly heavy gauge wire.

the part that weirded me out was the sparks off the one outlet when otherwise dead.

You are going to need an ohm meter to sort this out.

Two approaches.

1- pull the wires out of the breaker panel and hook up a 9 volt battery. Go looking for where the power does not show up.

2-Just use the ohm meter and a long cord to check continuity of the circuit. Kind of a pain.

Not saying this is your problem, but this might turn out to be a hidden junction box. When doing renos, people often cover up junction boxes in the wall/ceiling so that they don't have to look at an ugly cover plate. The results can be infuriating if the failure is in the box.

Have you pulled the breaker to make sure it is good?

I havn't yanked the breaker yet, the box is in a closet and a bit of a pain in the ass to get to.

I finally dug out my multimeter and tested the outlets in that room and yeah nothing. I then took one probe out and touched it to the metal outlet housing getting a small spark and again that light flashed in the storage room. The side that would have bumped into the housing last night would have been the black (hot) wire side.

Did you check voltage to ground or just voltage to neutral. It's possible that you have lost the neutral side at some point and now the power has no return path.

They are all old two plug outlets. I am thinking this might be whats going on though with the whole hot side touching the box and get a spark/that light coming on.