Yesterday we had a burning plastic smell from an outlet. We shut off power at the breaker and took off the outlet. It was black inside the outlet. We cut off the "burnt" tips of the wires and stripped them down. There were two wires coming in from right into the outlet and one wire heading out the left from the outlet. How do we connect the wires to bypass the outlet and restore power to the rest of the circuit?
Splice the white wires together and add a pigtail. Splice the black wires together and add a pigtail. If the ground wires are not already spliced an d pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the replacement outlet. By pigtai ling, the outlet is no longer carrying the full load of the circuit and the rest of the circuit will not fail if the new outlet goes bad.
Were the original connections on the burnt outlet pushed into the back of t he outlet or were they on the side screws?
John Grabowski
The impression I got was that he just wanted to reconnect things for now without replacing the outlet.
He wasn't very clear about exactly what is there now -- 3 wires, 2 on one side, one on the other side.
I'm thinking maybe he could wire nut the 2 wires on one side together, wire nut or cap the other wire, and not replace the outlet until later. But, I'm not sure.
What I did not see yet was finding the reason for the burning smell. The receptacle was a pass through device but the actual overload may have been downstream and may still exist. It may just move the problem to another location.
If the receptacle was just sitting in a box for years it is unlikely it would just heat and burn, but a load sure could affect it.
Tom you are right. I did not think about the fact that it is a mobile home. They do not always have standard electrical boxes. In some instances the device and electrical box are one unit, in which case pigtailing would not be a viable solution.
To the OP, how about posting some pictures somewhere?
There is also the possibility it has aluminum wiring......
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