New here, please go easy on me:)
I have a few outlets that we’ve never used because furniture was in the way. Just started moving stuff around and I’ve come to realize that 2 outlets just don’t work, with known working items.
Tested with volt meter and I get:
0 across A&B
120 across A&C
120 across B&C
I get completely opposite readings at a known working outlet. Is this a case of just replacing the outlets or tracing a bad wire in the wall? There are 3 outlets on this breaker and only 1 of them is working.
Best Answer
Welcome to the Magic 8-ball:
Harper calls these the Magic 8-Ball because they sometimes produce meaningless, seemingly random, results. But for straightforward wire swaps they are exactly the tool to use.
These testers make what you found out the hard way a bit easier - i.e., you can plug them into each 120V receptacle to very quickly find out what is going on. What you have would be described by one of these testers as Hot/Ground reverse.
The normal setup is:
You normally have:
There are a lot of different things that can go wrong. The most common things are simply wires connected in the wrong places. If Hot and Ground are reversed then you will get:
With this specific combination, 2-prong devices will not work but at least will be safe (no voltage, so no current) and 3-prong devices will not work and will not be safe.
To fix:
You will likely find at least one receptacle wired incorrectly. Fix it and then test with a multimeter, though in this case using a Magic 8-Ball tester will speed up the process as this is right on target for that type of tester.