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

[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.