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Looking for advice on why when I plug anything into one of my outlets, it just doesn’t work. My electrical tester registers 121 volts. Thanks.
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Maybe your "anything" is broken ?
b : )
*You may have a neutral unhooked. shut off all power to the house and pull the recepticle out and make sure that all wires are connected to the back of the receptical.If they are stabbed into the back of the receptical you need to put them on the correct way. Which is to loop them to the screws and screw them down. If there is a pigtail connection check that too, typicaly I will take the joint apart and redo it with proper wirenuts just to make damn sure it's correct and tight. Pretty basic stuff. if the answer isn't right there in the box then you should probably get a pro to look at it. It's tough to get someone to stop by and just look at a receptical for you, so that's why if you go through just the basic trouble shooting it could save the aggrevation of waiting a week for someone to show up and find it's as simple as that. But make sure all the power is off.p.s. please post your findings here so we know if that fixed it.
*Is the 120 volts from neutral to hot or ground to hot? Most hardware stores sell a plug tester that tells you if the plug is wired correctly and what the problem is if it's not. They are cheap and work nice.
*Bake has a better idea to start out with.
*You probably have a very bad connection between the wires and your receptacle. This most oftern happens to either very old systems where the wires corrode, heat up, loosen up etc. or you have a receptacle where the wires are backwired ( pushed into little holes) in the back of the receptacle and the connection there is bad. It will show voltage with a tester but won't support a load (anything) plugged into it.
*You were all right. And a good thing. I went down into the basement and I saw where the wires ran into a junction box. I thought, that must be where the loose pigtail is. When I looked into the junction box, the neutral wires coating was burnt off and had melted together with the hot wire. Scared me to death. The wire looks like #14-16: more like #16. I certainly owe you something. Thanks again, Steve
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Looking for advice on why when I plug anything into one of my outlets, it just doesn't work. My electrical tester registers 121 volts. Thanks.