The Outlet In My Friend's Basement

[Ricardus]

So my friend moved into a new house a few months ago. They took in a roommate and she decided to be nice and do some vacuuming. She started in the finished basement. She plugged the vacuum into a regular outlet, turned the vacuum on, and smoked the motor. She figured it was just a bad vacuum and it was just at the end of its life, so she got the other vacuum, plugged it in and turned it on. That got fried too. So now she's thinking something might be wrong. She told my friend and he obviously said don't plug anything else into it, and he got his meter and read across the hot and neutral pins and got 220 VAC. So he opened it up, and sure enough, it was a normal outlet wired with a black wire, a red wire, and a ground.

So he called me and I suspected maybe the guy had a 220 device like high end table saw, and instead of using the correct outlet, cheaped out and put a normal duplex outlet in, but wired it for 220. Either way, it was a normal outlet wired for 30 amp, 220 VAC.

So I guess he called the former owner, and the owner said they indeed did wire one of the outlets for 30 amp 220 for a big air conditioner, but did use the correct outlet.

Apparently, later, when the house was being sold, the realtor or something decided that a regular outlet needed to be installed there, so the person they hired put in a regular outlet using the existing wires, without apparently having a freakin clue what they were doing.

This kinda stuff burns down houses and kills people. I'm just sitting here in shock. My dad was a licensed electrician, and I grew up working for him since my early teens, and can't believe this level of incompetence.

Anyway, had to share.

 

[fazer]

Warning danger !  I suppose it should have a warning sign or something as well.    Scary stuff.    Glad nobody got hurt.  I would ask the realtor to buy two new vacuum clearers at the least.

 

[Ricardus]

Warning danger !  I suppose it should have a warning sign or something as well.    Scary stuff.    Glad nobody got hurt.  I would ask the realtor to buy two new vacuum clearers at the least.

Yeah, that's what I told him.

 

[pucho812]

had an outlet last place where in a junction box up stream,  the neutral and group were flipped.  luckily we caught it before use.

 

[Youngwhisk]

In some places it is allowable to have a split receptacle where the neutral (white) goes to the neutral side of the plug (the tab is not broken off) and the black and red go to the top and bottom screws on the other side. The tab is broken off on that side allowing for the top and bottom plugs to be on separate circuits. That is not allowed everywhere. The breakers for both must be linked. If the "electrician" didn't break the tab off and ran the black to one side and the red to the other and didn't use the white, you would get the above result.

 

[Ricardus]

In some places it is allowable to have a split receptacle where the neutral (white) goes to the neutral side of the plug (the tab is not broken off) and the black and red go to the top and bottom screws on the other side. The tab is broken off on that side allowing for the top and bottom plugs to be on separate circuits. That is not allowed everywhere. The breakers for both must be linked. If the "electrician" didn't break the tab off and ran the black to one side and the red to the other and didn't use the white, you would get the above result.

Right. But we now know this is not what happened. 

They wired one of the hot legs to the neutral side.

 

[pucho812]

shocking....

Sorry had to do the bad pun. 

 

[Ricardus]

My personal nightmare was what if I had just purchased or built a sexy new piece of gear, and plugged it into that outlet? I'd be one pissed off MFer.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is a pretty serious (dangerous) code violation.

You said a red wire, black wire and ground? Red and black are both hots. Was there no white (neutral)? Was the ground green or bare wire?

Either way there is no way to wire that for a 120v edison outlet,  without a proper neutral return, grabbing 120V from either the black, or the red... not both. The green/ground cannot be used as a neutral return. 

JR 

PS: can you find who did it, and apply some negative feedback in person? Maybe get a new vacuum?

 

[Ricardus]

This is a pretty serious (dangerous) code violation.

You said a red wire, black wire and ground? Red and black are both hots. Was there no white (neutral)? Was the ground green or bare wire?

Either way there is no way to wire that for a 120v edison outlet,  without a proper neutral return, grabbing 120V from either the black, or the red... not both. The green/ground cannot be used as a neutral return. 

JR 

PS: can you find who did it, and apply some negative feedback in person? Maybe get a new vacuum?

Yes. I know all of this. 

He has no idea who actually did the work.

 

[john12ax7]

I agree about getting reimbursed for the vacuums.  But they should also pay to have a qualified electrician wire it correctly.

 

[pucho812]

out of curiosity, would this type of setup trip a GFI outlet?

 

[JohnRoberts]

out of curiosity, would this type of setup trip a GFI outlet?

No....  In theory  GFCI only trips if current goes out one plug lead and doesn't return into the other one... That said typical GFCI outlets for residential use are rated for 125V so may misbehave from 2x over-voltage (i.e. I don't know).

GFCI will happily fry vacuums or whatever all day long as long as load is normally between the outlet leads.

JR