I have a woodworking shop with 3 – 240V outlets. I recently had some electrical work done in the house and now one of the outlets doesn't work. Testing the 2 working outlets (see below) I get 120V between ground and both legs and 240V between the two legs. But if I test the non-working outlet I do not get the 240V between the legs. Is this something I could fix easily or should I get an electrician to come back out and fix it?
Edit:
Electrical panel, I switched the two 240V circuits off to better highlight which circuits I'm talking about. The bottom right breakers go to a second panel…
Edit 2:
Dead panel and info sheet. Sadly it looks like the info sheet needs some updating.
Best Answer
This panel has 20 spaces/40 circuits. The spaces alternate (by row) between the 2 hot legs. The "A" and "B" within each space are on the same leg.
The functioning 240V circuit is on 12B + 14A.
The dead 240V circuit is on 16A + 16B.
All the voltage readings you've made and the pictures match.
The simple solution, is to swap 14B and 16B. That would make the 240V circuit 14B + 16A, and it would work properly.
The problem likely happened when the electrician moved something else and did not realize these two breakers needed to be a pair on opposite legs. Why didn't they realize it? That's a good question. They should have figured it out by looking at looking at the wires, but since they are loose wires in conduit rather than cables, that is not immediately obvious. They should have figured it out from the panel labels, but those are often wrong. So that just leaves the breakers themselves.
Key question, since I can't tell from the picture: Are the "dead circuit" breakers (16A + 16B) actually a double-breaker or two breakers tied together? Or are they two entirely separate breakers (i.e., you can flip each one independently)? If they are a double-breaker or handle-tied pair then the electrician should have known better. Seriously. If they are not a double-breaker or handle-tied pair then you should either replace them with a double-breaker or get a proper handle-tie.