I've replaced dozens of outlets in my life without incident. This time, when I pulled the outlet away from the box, I found something odd. The white (neutral) wire was as it should be. But, you know how the back of the outlets have two holes where you can insert the wires? One for the top outlet and a separate set for the bottom if you decide to wire in series or do something with switch outlets…?
Well, the black wire was inserted into the top hole and the green wire was inserted into the bottom hole, not attached to the green ground screw. When I hooked up the new outlet, I fixed this.
But here's the weird side effect… NOW the other outlet in the kitchen has stopped working. I've tested everything else in the house. It's just this one other outlet 6feet from the first one.
I haven't pulled it out yet, but I'm guessing the green wire must not have been acting as a ground…? It must have been running power to the other outlet?
I'm asking here before I go any further just in case there's something an expert knows that I am overlooking.
Best Answer
I ended up putting it back the way it was wired when I opened it all up, just with new outlets. I think I'm supposed to put this info in a comment, but I can't see an easy way to add the requested images to comments.
This is the first socket I opened. In this pic I have it wired to the new outlet. My wife tells me that the wire I assumed was green is actually dark gray. (I'm mildly color blind.) When wired like this, the outlet works, but the second outlet does not.
Here is the second outlet (original) pulled out.
Inside the second box there's a black and red wire twisted together. I'm not sure where the red goes. There is an outlet above the stove that the range hood is plugged into. And another outlet for the gas stove. Neither of these two outlets were affected during this. They are not on the same circuit breaker. At some point in the house's history the stove was switched from electric to gas. So I'm not sure if the outlet for the stove was added then or what.
In the end, I went with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.