Home Electrical Question

[Stephen]

I thought that my dryer had broken yesterday. Got a new one tonight, plugged it in and nothing. Now I had checked that there was power coming from the 240v outlet, just not how much. Since it had shown power I thought, "Hey, must be something with the dryer." and proceeded to diagnose that.
Since the new dryer didn't work, I grabbed an actual volt tester and the 240v outlet only shows 124v coming out. That is odd. It's on a double breaker (linked together), could one half of that breaker have gone bad?

 

[I Lean]

Could be. You'll have 120-ish per leg, so that makes sense.

 

[193kyle]

Yeah, pretty common for 240v breakers to lose one leg of power.

 

[Stephen]

Cool... I'll give it a shot.

 

[LT.]

I don't know if this will help but, your plug has both phases on the panel. If you were to look at the panel you would see lugs on the left side and on the right side. Your breaker will be touching both sides. The lugs are interlaced and your breaker will only be about twice the size of a regular breaker and only on one side of the panel. If the problem is not in the panel then shut the breaker off and take a look at your outlet. There will most likely be a red, black, white, and either a bare ground or it maybe green. Make sure the wires are securely attached to the outlet. After you have made sure everything is tight then your next step is the dryer itself. I know you said you were only getting half of the power you were expecting but, sometimes the dryer is not wired at all. The pigtail may just be clamped into the connector on the dryer without being wired in at all. This is common for dishwashers and dish disposals that come with pigtails.

LT.

 

[waynehartwig]

I thought that my dryer had broken yesterday. Got a new one tonight, plugged it in and nothing. Now I had checked that there was power coming from the 240v outlet, just not how much. Since it had shown power I thought, "Hey, must be something with the dryer." and proceeded to diagnose that.
Since the new dryer didn't work, I grabbed an actual volt tester and the 240v outlet only shows 124v coming out. That is odd. It's on a double breaker (linked together), could one half of that breaker have gone bad?

Before you go any further, turn the breaker off then back on and try it. One leg could have tripped

 

[Stephen]

I don't know if this will help but, your plug has both phases on the panel. If you were to look at the panel you would see lugs on the left side and on the right side. Your breaker will be touching both sides. The lugs are interlaced and your breaker will only be about twice the size of a regular breaker and only on one side of the panel. If the problem is not in the panel then shut the breaker off and take a look at your outlet. There will most likely be a red, black, white, and either a bare ground or it maybe green. Make sure the wires are securely attached to the outlet. After you have made sure everything is tight then your next step is the dryer itself. I know you said you were only getting half of the power you were expecting but, sometimes the dryer is not wired at all. The pigtail may just be clamped into the connector on the dryer without being wired in at all. This is common for dishwashers and dish disposals that come with pigtails.

LT.

Everything looked good as far as that was concerned. Now I'm just waiting for daylight before I kick off the main power and switch out the breaker.

Before you go any further, turn the breaker off then back on and try it. One leg could have tripped

Way ahead of you on that one buddy!

 

[rambrush]

So why change out your breaker? did you test it and confirm there was only 120v on 1 leg at the breaker? ( I know you tested it at the receptical end but not sure if you tested at the other end)? or is there 120v on both terminals? 240v across both?

 

[Corban_White]

So why change out your breaker? did you test it and confirm there was only 120v on 1 leg at the breaker? ( I know you tested it at the receptical end but not sure if you tested at the other end)? or is there 120v on both terminals? 240v across both?

That's what you need to do. If it is the standard 3 prong dryer plug it should be tested like this:

The 4 prong should test the same with the half circle one being the ground.

If you are getting 110-120 between the 2 lines and the same between one of the lines and the neutral with the voltage between the other line and neutral being 0 then there is a problem with that line. Could be the breaker, the plug or the wire-most likely at the connection to the plug.



But, since I'm a little late with this reply you probably already got it figured out.

 

[NOTATOY]

Everything looked good as far as that was concerned. Now I'm just waiting for daylight before I kick off the main power and switch out the breaker.

You didn't need to shut off your main to pull out a breaker (usually) shutt of your dryer breaker and just pop it out.

 

[waynehartwig]

Everything looked good as far as that was concerned. Now I'm just waiting for daylight before I kick off the main power and switch out the breaker.

You didn't need to shut off your main to pull out a breaker (usually) shutt of your dryer breaker and just pop it out.

That's true.. ..Unless your afraid of 200A@220V

 

[Stephen]

You didn't need to shut off your main to pull out a breaker (usually) shutt of your dryer breaker and just pop it out.

Yeah...


I pulled the breaker and took it down to Bush Electrical today, they tested it and said, "Yup, one leg is bad." and sold me a new one. Popped the new one in, checked the voltage at the breaker and it showed 240v. Checked the voltage at the receptacle... same problem as before. I am very confused! I've replaced the receptacle already, and if I pull it off and just check the pare wires, I get the same reading.

 

[LT.]

Yeah...


I pulled the breaker and took it down to Bush Electrical today, they tested it and said, "Yup, one leg is bad." and sold me a new one. Popped the new one in, checked the voltage at the breaker and it showed 240v. Checked the voltage at the receptacle... same problem as before. I am very confused! I've replaced the receptacle already, and if I pull it off and just check the pare wires, I get the same reading.

When you eliminate the impossible what ever is left, however improbable, must be the answer. If you have fixed the breaker, and you know that the outlet is fine, then I would say you have a broken wire somewhere along the line. You can check this by doing a continuity check. Best of luck.

LT.

 

[ALF]

When you eliminate the impossible what ever is left, however improbable, must be the answer. If you have fixed the breaker, and you know that the outlet is fine, then I would say you have a broken wire somewhere along the line. You can check this by doing a continuity check. Best of luck.

LT.

yup disconnect the breaker and run a cont. test on all the wires...hopefully a broken, or burnt out, wire isn't the problem but it is a possibility

 

[Caleb]

When you eliminate the impossible what ever is left, however improbable, must be the answer.

LT.

OK, Spock

 

[LT.]

OK, Spock

Sir Arthor Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, not Spock.

LT.

 

[BCGPER]

One more item to check, before you start condeming the wire. Do you have 110 volts on BOTH connectors on the breaker (right on the breaker)?

I've seen on more than one home, especially those built in the 70's using alunimum wire, where one leg can come loose at the meter and cause this problem.

If you have an electric range, or some other 220 volt appliance and it's running fine, then this won't help you at all.

 

[waynehartwig]

Have you looked at the outlet yet? Physically taken it out of the wall and checked the wiring in the back? Did you check for voltage there?

SOunds like something happened, caused the breaker to trip and in the process kilt it. So now you still have the actual problem to fix. ie you're fixing multiple issues here...

 

[Stephen]

It was a short right behind the wall box. It also blew one leg of the circuit breaker, so I had to replace that.

 

[rambrush]

Hopefully you evaluated what caused the short to happen. like the wires just being brought in through a knock out with no protection from chaffing. hate to see it reoccur on you.