Only on one room of my house, I have five dual receptacle outlets. All five outlets work, but only one of the two receptacles work in each of the five. I did not do any electrical work or anything to cause this to spontaneously happen. Confused. I checked the circuit breaker and the GFI outlets in the house.

How long ago did this change happen? I am assuming both outlets used to work. Are there any light switches in the room that could be controlling one half of each outlet, that's fairly common.

All the lower sockets in each duplex receptacle are controlled by a switch. If you take the receptacles out of the wall you will notice on the side with the gold screws that the tab that connects both screws is taken off so that one is always hot and the other is switched. If you don't want it like that you'll have to get new receptacles or jump from one screw to the other with the constant hot.

You have 2 post going, same problem.
If switch doesn't work or can't locate, you could remove a receptical that has the tab broke off and install new receptacle with tab intact, this would restore to 4 other recepticles.
If Electrically capable you could use a jumper as suggested on one receptacle to restore power to the other 4.

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Originally Posted by Stratmando

You have 2 post going, same problem.
If switch doesn't work or can't locate, you could remove a receptical that has the tab broke off and install new recepticle with tab intact, this would restore to 4 other recepticles.
If Electrically capable you could use a jumper as suggested on one recepticle to restore power to the other 4.

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"Electrically capable". I should have put that in there. I'm an electrician and sometimes things basic to myself could kill others. Make sure the breaker is off before removing receptacle. Good point Strat.