Spent 11 hours chasing a phantom short in my backyard studio, and it was one dumb outlet the whole time | Backyard Studios

Xena Thompson · 2026-10-02T07:50:03.062903+00:00

Last weekend I finally got my backyard studio wired up, a 12x16 shed in my backyard in Portland, and every time I plugged in my space heater the breaker would pop after about 20 minutes. I figured it was too much load, so I split the outlets onto two circuits, swapped the breaker, and even ran a whole new line before I found the real culprit: one GFCI outlet on the far wall had a tiny bit of sawdust packed in behind it that was letting moisture bridge the terminals. Has anyone else had a shed outlet go bad from dust and damp before I rip out the rest of the run?

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Spent 11 hours chasing a phantom short in my backyard studio, and it was one dumb outlet the whole time | Backyard Studios - The Design Community Hub