Electrical – All Outlets on Breaker Randomly Give ~8V

circuit breakerdryerelectrical

All the devices on one of my breakers randomly stop working, and when checked with a multimeter, I see that the outlets are giving a voltage of ~8V rather than the ~125V I usually get. When I check that breaker at the panel, I get ~125V as I should.

What's extra strange is that this seems to be associated with my dryer, but I can't imagine how. The dryer is on a totally separate breaker from the one that keeps dying. But when this happens, I have to flip the dryer breaker and the other one, and then turn on the dryer, and then boom all the other devices power up again the second I turn start the dryer. I've done this three times now, so I really doubt that it's just coincidence.

Note: My dryer is ghetto rigged. It has two dials: an on-off dial and a timer dial. A while back, the on-off dial stopped working. I opened up the dryer, and hardwired past on-off button so that it just starts as soon as you move the timer dial. In doing so I left a third wire that was connected to the on-off button just hanging out – unconnected with electrical tape covering it. I did check to make sure that the chasis was still grounded. That "fix" has been working for 7 months before issue started. I'm not sure if its related, but I just want to give as much info as possible.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated – Thanks!

Best Answer

You have an intermittent open leg on your electrical service. By turning on the dryer you are creating a backfeed through the heating elements which is a 240V load that uses both legs of your service.

An open service neutral would show with the voltages in the house going both up and down. Meaning you might get 50V on one leg but 180V on the other.

I'd start by calling the power company to see if the problem is on their end of things.