[Exorcist33]

I recently changed the electric sockets above the kitchen counter tops. Basically I took some old beige ones that were originally installed with the house in 1986, replaced them with new white ones from Home Depot. They are the standard 110 volt. I noticed that there was a white wire, black wire, ground wire, and red wire. I inserted each of these wires into the respective slots in the new white sockets, as was previous done in the old beige sockets.

Upon completing the wiring to the new sockets, I went to turn on the fuse box and immediately the circuit breakers tripped. I turned off the fuse box again, did some googling and some people mentioned that the red wire did not need to be connected as that was why the circuit breakers for the kitchen counter sockets kept tripping. So I remove the red wire, boxed it off, and just left the black and white one on, along with the ground wire.

Then I went back to turn on the fuse box and everything turned on fine and dandy.. or at least I thought. The sockets were fine and the appliances that plugged into them work. But the dishwasher was no longer working.

At first I thought I might have blown the dishwasher. So I undid the box covering the dishwasher wires and placed a voltage tester to see if there was any power coming from the wires at all. There was no live power from the wires going to the dishwasher.

There is a switch that turns the dishwasher on/off. I turned the switch on, placed the voltage tester next it and it detected power. I turned it off, and the voltage tester detected no power. So power is available at the switch, but not at the dishwasher.

I used the voltage meter on the new white sockets as well, and it picked up power on all of them.

So I am not sure if removing the red wires from the sockets has anything to do with losing power to the dishwasher. There is no red wire that goes to the dishwasher, only a black, white, and ground wires. Any thoughts?

Thanks

[hkstroud]

What you have is two circuits sharing the same neutral and "split" receptacles. If you look at an old receptacles you will see that the "tab" or metal strip that connects the two screws on the "hot" or right side has been removed. That makes the top and bottom halves of the receptacle independent of each other and in this case on different circuits.

Remove the tab on the right from each receptacle and rewire connecting the red wire as before. The dishwasher is obviously connected to the red circuit.

[donf]

First, you need to verify the amperage of the circuit. Check the breaker, the amperage is on the handle, it should be either 15or20 amps.

What you have is a "Multiwire Branch Circuit"

This neans that two hot share the same "Neutral" (white)

From the description you provided, it appearsto me that the receptales are supplied by the black conductpor and the red conductor supplies the diswasher.

Technically this is a code violation by current code.

Currently, there should be a minimm of two 20 amp branch circuits (GFCI) protected to serve the electrical receptales above the counter.

The diswasher should not be on the same circuit as these receptacles.

[tkrussell]

What is a Code violation?