I have a very strange electrical problem at my vacation home and am hoping
someone here has an idea of what could be going on. I appologize in advance
for the length of this explanation but don't think I can describe it in fewer
words.
All I wanted to do this morning was replace a couple of old (probably from the
60's) outlets. I removed the outlet from one box and found something strange.
There were two sets of wires in the box, one two wire and one three. (The
house was built in the late 50's and uses greenfield cable with the ground
coming from the box.). The two black wires were connected and the right side
of the outlet had one white wire connected and the left side had one white
and one red. The outlet was an old non-grounded one, so there was no way to
tell which side was supposed to be hot. But, my simple electrical tester
showed the side with the two wires was the hot side; that is, both completed a
circuit when touched to the single white wire or the box. What may be
significant that didn't register to begin with is the fact that both wires
(the red and the white on the left side) were hot.
It was all strange but I replaced the outlet with a new one, wiring it exactly
as before. Everything tested fine, so I was about to move to the second
outlet when we realized that about half of the circuits in the house were out.
All circuit breakers looked fine. I then remembered that the two left wires
were both hot, meaning it wasn't a case where one cable was going in and the
other going out. It occurred to me the original outlet might have been
adapted for two circuits, although there were no tabs to break off as in a
modern receptacle. I broke the left side tab off of the new outlet but
nothing changed. At one point, I also turned off and on the main and each
circuit breaker but nothing changed. Then, several circuits came back on, but
at what appeared to be half power. I don't have a meter here but the lights
were very dim.
I tested a GFCI that was on the same circuit and it was not working, at least
until I got a shock and realized that the white wire was open but black was
still hot. I got the shock by touching the ground and black at the same
time.
OK, last bit of diagnostic info. I dismantled the old original outlet and it
is not designed for separate circuits. The two wires on the left were being
tied together, exactly as they had been when I first replaced it with a modern
one.
Everything worked just fine before I replaced the outlet. The only problem
was that it was worn and didn't hold a plug in very tight. Now I don't know
what the heck is going on or what I may have done wrong. Does anyone have any
ideas?
Thanks.
Jim
Sent from my iPad
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