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?

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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 and pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the replacement outlet. By pigtailing, 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 the outlet or were they on the side screws?

John Grabowski
http://www.MrElectrician.TV

In ,
John G typed:
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 and pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the
replacement outlet. By pigtailing, 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 the outlet or were they on the side screws?

John Grabowski
http://www.MrElectrician.TV

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.

On 9/17/2016 2:40 PM, TomR wrote:
In ,
John G typed:
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 and pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the
replacement outlet. By pigtailing, 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 the outlet or were they on the side screws?

John Grabowski
http://www.MrElectrician.TV

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.

On Sat, 17 Sep 2016 15:04:15 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

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.

Is this aluminum wire in a Mobile home?

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 and pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the
replacement outlet. By pigtailing, 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 the outlet or were they on the side screws?

John Grabowski
http://www.MrElectrician.TV

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.

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?

On Sat, 17 Sep 2016 16:48:18 -0700 (PDT), John G
wrote:

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......

On 9/17/2016 10:37 AM, John G wrote:

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 and pigtailed, do it. Put the pigtails on the replacement outlet. By pigtailing, 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.


I like girls in pigtails........