I recently moved into a house and found one outlet that did not work. Figuring it was a bum outlet, I shut off the breaker to the room and took the outlet out. I found two white wires, one red, and one bare ground.
I wired it up with the two white wires to silver, red to brass, ground to ground and found that the outlet still did not work.
Leaving the wiring open, I restored the circuit and found that none of the outlets in the room work. So, I imagine that it was wired in series rather than in parallel.
The voltage measured between the two white wires is 120V. I did not expect that.
EDIT: Red to ground is zero. But when both whites are hooked up to the silver, the outlet does not work but all the outlets in the room do work.
Can you shed some light on what's going on? And how to hook it up properly. Thank you in advance.
There are two grouping of wires coming into the box. One side has a white, black, red, and ground. The other side has a white, black, and ground. The black wires from each group are connected with a twist-cap.
Best Answer
With a 14/3 (white-black-red-ground) and 14/2 (white-black-ground) coming into this box, CoAstroGeek suspected that this might be a switched outlet. Exactly right.
There is a switch in the room next door that we had no idea what it was for. once i switched it on, there was power to the outlet. the short of it is- the room used to be the garage and was converted into an office 40 years ago. there are two switches on the wall in the room next door; one for an exterior light and one for that outlet. must have been an overhead light or something.