Is there an electrician in the house?

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?

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.