Dear Doctor Livejournal (Electrical Dept.)

[eub]

One electrical box in the kitchen stopped working, both outlets of it. It definitely worked until the day or two before.

My little outlet tester says hot/ground reversed. I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure I tested every three-prong outlet in the house (to find the ones that aren't actually grounded), and there was sure no hot/ground reversal. Which sounds like a weird condition to have, ever, plus extra-weird to spontaneously develop. I o_Oed and breakered that circuit off.

Now I ask Dear Doctor Internet (Electrical Dept.) and it sounds like that reading probably means "open neutral" and a load somewhere else on the circuit. The "backstabbed outlets" that the Doctor mentions seem to be described here.

I ♥ Doctor Internet (all her Departments), but I like a second opinion from Doctor Livejournal on electrical work. Also... if I find these are backstab, I'll probably change them all over to screwed, but I'm curious if there's also a way to debug which one went bad before opening them all -- it should be either the last *working* one in the circuit chain (if the fault's in the "outbound" neutral), or the first non-working one (if fault's in the "inbound" neutral), I believe?

Comments

[hattifattener]

Dr. Internet seems to be busy helping another caller at the moment but the diagnosis sounds reasonable to me.

You could use one of the simpler outlet testers (the kind that's just a neon bulb with two probes) to compare the outlet's neutral against a neutral or ground brought in on an extension cord.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same. Find an outlet that you know is working, figure out if neutral's gone hot. I agree with your diagnostic technique, with the proviso that the problem might not be in an outlet box, but in somewhere else that people have joined neutrals: a light or a switch-with-power.

Also, afaik, if people wire the ground to the neutral per-outlet, the outlet testers will show the outlet as grounded without actually being grounded: people do that if the wiring in the house is only two-strand but they want three-prong outlets.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Looking, I think this circuit contains only two outlet boxes on opposite walls of the room with another circuit interspersed. I dunno, man.

Re the afaik: interesting, that is a definite possibility in this house. Though it would be a different electrical-work style that what I know we have, which is three-prong outlets with open ground.