Charleston Sc- Inland, not on any beach or anything like that. I have 2 outlets, front porch and back porch. Both porches are covered but outside, nevertheless. They dont get wet when it rains, just the outside moisture from it. Both outlets are on the same circuit, there's no other outlets in this circuit. Just these 2, they're both 15amp.
One at front porch is fed from breaker, it then feeds 2nd one on back porch. The fed back porch quit working, been about a year now. Today I took 2nd fed receptacle off, tested wires and got 119 or so at black/ground. Got 0 at white/ground. There was like 1 or 2 at black/white wires. The neutral and the hot are showing 1 or 2 at the most, sometimes 0, it just sits there and fluctuates around those 3 numbers.
The main front porch outlet that feeds this non working one has 6 wires instead of 3. Two black, 2 neutral whites and 2 grounds. The 2 grounds are twisted several times together, nice and tight. The white and black from the breaker show 119 or 120 or so. The white/ground show 0. The black/ground show 119-120. I replaced the receptacle from an older push type to a newer one.
The newer one all wired up correctly show the 119 to 120 from both white/blacks, both black/grounds and show 0 from both white/blacks. There's still same issue at 2nd outlet.
No power still. Still same black/white showing 1 or 2a. Black/ground showing 119 or so. White/ground showing 0.
Is the breaker bad? Can't be, right? The breaker has red button on it, in the box, none of the other breakers have that red reset button on theirs. The 2 receptacles and not gfci's, just regular receps. 1987 house.
I've done a good bit of troubleshooting and checking things, still not sure why no power at back porch's outlet. Anything I should check for next? I def got tools, time and patience for any help I can get! Thanks.
Best Answer
If I read your question correctly you are getting 120 V hot to ground but not 120 V hot to neutral. That sounds like the neutral is broken or there is a poor connection of the ongoing neutral at the first or second receptacle.
You have a voltmeter. Does it have a resistance function (ohms)? If so you can check to see if the connection is broken between the two receptacles.
Turn off the breaker. Plug in a long extension cord sufficient to reach from the front porch receptacle all the way to the back receptacle (either through the house or around).
Test the resistance between the neutral in the cord and the neutral in the back receptacle. The neutral is the longer slot.
EDIT
If the neutral path is interrupted, you should see a high resistance hundreds or thousands of ohms. You can also check the resistance between the hot in the plug and the hot in the receptacle (shorter slots). Since you report you are getting 120 V hot to gnd, you should see a low resistance there (0.1 ohm or so). Be sure the breaker is off before connecting the meter in the resistance mode to any hots.