Is there an electrician in the house?

[BlackVert]

I have a weird situation with one of the electrical outlets in my home. It has only 76 volts AC. Pretty weird, huh?

Now there is one thing I should mention about that one outlet which is probably related ... it is a cold room and we have an oil based heater that we have been running alot this winter. And that is the outlet in which the heater has been plugged.

Conicidence? Probably not.

How should I proceed?

 

[moosetang408w]

First thing I would say is compare it to another outlet to ensure your meter is working. Beyond that. Something is very wrong. you meter has an extremely high resistance so it has the entire voltage drop. unless you have a charred connection on the plug or the breaker side, but if stuff works when plugged(draws current) I don't know what to tell you.

 

[OrangeMustangGt]

you have lost the neutral to your service.

if one phase is 76 the the other phase is around 164.

DO not plug in anything electronic untill you get this repaired!!!

It may also be just ONE circuit that has lost it's neutral. See if any other outlets show abnormal voltage.

You lost a neutral somewhere on an edison 3-wire circuit.

 

[BlackVert]

the heater was working last night when i went to bed. this morning, it was not working. i assumed the current drawn by the heater over the last month or so simply caused the outlet to fail (or something along those lines, i am not an electrician), so i got a new outlet and put it in. when the new outlet didn't work either, i got my multimeter out and checked it, which is when i found it to be that weird voltage. i did check the meter on the other outlet in the room and it read just you would expect, 120 volts (actually it was closer to 121). i have not plugged anything into the weird outlet and it appears to be the only one like that.

i called a friend who is an electrician and he is coming over first thing tomorrow to look at it.

so if one is 44 below 120, the other is 44 above ... hmmmm. i still don't get it, but i intend to ask my electrician friend how that stuff works tomorrow.

 

[revhead347]

I gather you should check the voltage from the wires directly. It might just be the socket. Home Depot sells sockets for about $2, made in America.

Kurt

 

[Black95GTS]

you have lost the neutral to your service.

if one phase is 76 the the other phase is around 164.

DO not plug in anything electronic untill you get this repaired!!!

It may also be just ONE circuit that has lost it's neutral. See if any other outlets show abnormal voltage.

You lost a neutral somewhere on an edison 3-wire circuit.

Bingo. Call the power company, have them send a crew out. This is a common occurrence. If they verify their neutral connection is good to your service, then you should call a licensed electrician to come out and trouble shoot. Sounds like its only 1 circuit, in your house, which puts the onus on you. Homeowner's might cover repairs, worth checking out.

If you have lost the neutral, but also take the load off your circuit, then a voltmeter will report everything is fine. Its only under load conditions will an unbalance show up.

Adam

 

[BlackVert]

thanks guys for your insight. :SNSign:

the electrician fit me in morning before his scheduled job. when he checked it, it seemed normal and happy, he made sure it was grounded correctly, and we plugged the heater in (it was working again) and went on to one of the other things i wanted him to look at.

about 15 minutes later, we went back and it was not working and had that 76 volts again. i was actually kinda relieved because that showed that there really was a problem and i wasn't crazy.

he suspects that the wire connection in the box from where this receptacle is fed may be loose or has carbon deposits that is causing the neutral wire connection to be flaky. so we dropped the light in the ceiling and checked the connections there, but no luck. that was all he had time for so i won't be using that outlet for a while until he can come back.