DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:
Happy New Year to everyone! I have an electical probem that's a
little bit of a mystery to me. We moved into our house 2 years
ago and just recently the electrical outlet for the washer started
to drop voltage under load. I have seemed to fix the problem but
am not sure of the exact cause.

The outlet will start out at 120v AC and then when the washer is
started, the voltage drops to 40-60v. If I reset the breaker, the
voltage will return to 120v until load is placed on the circuit
again. This is a recent problem that has occurred without any
changes to the wiring, electrical load, etc. For two years, the
outlet on the washer worked fine.

In tracing this problem, I found that the receptacle was a 15A,
but the breaker and wiring was 20A. When I replaced the 15A
receptacle with another 15A receptacle, the problem persisted.
When I replaced the receptacle with a 20A one and also replaced
the breaker it seems to be working now. Any ideas to what the
problem is and why it has only shown up recently?

Thanks in advance,

Herb

Possibly a loose wire at the breaker. When you replaced the breaker, you
fixed the problem