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

[3smallishmagi.livejournal.com]

My suggestions are all variations of 'have you plugged it in and switched it on?'
Do you know the path electricity takes from outside into you house and to the kitchen electrical box?
Have you flipped all the circuit breakers on the path to the kitchen? (flip them off, then back on again to make sure it doesn't just look like it is on but has actually tripped)
Do you have any earth leakage breakers on any of your plugs (they're commonly in bathroom outlets, but I've been fooled by having them scattered about the house. when one trips, the whole circuit doesn't work. If its still set, pressing the 'test' button trips it (and you have to press it in to reset)
Is power reaching the kitchen box or is it just not leaving it (don't know how to test that)
Does the problem go away for some plugs if you turn off all but one breaker in the kitchen electrical box?

It may be that the power supply of an appliance plugged into the kitchen circuit has failed and has tripped a breaker (this is how I know about the earth leakage breakers)

If there's a short somewhere, you could troubleshoot it with the power off using a multimeter, but don't want to give specific steps (you could electrocute yourself or wreck your meter with great surprise.)

[eub.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts. I did try toggling the breaker off and on. There are some earth leakage breakers (Americanised as ground fault interrupters) in the kitchen, but not on this circuit. All but the one outlet box are delivering juice, BTW.

I'm betting I'll find a continuity break in the circuit's neutral, which I can then binary search on (with the whole kitchen off, which is why I'm waiting for daylight).