[ndim22]

OK, so in my garage there are three receptacles. One is original to the house and the other 2 were (I believe) installed by the previous owner of the house. Those two are not recessed into the wall, and you can tell they were not done by a professional.


Basically I have one 3 wire outlet coming out of the wall and connected to the first receptacle. Then, they took a length of wire, connected it to the two open connections on the first receptacle and ran it to the second, and attached the two receptacles to the outside of the wall.


I wanted to remove the second receptacle in the chain (the one not coming out of the wall) and keep the first one. Sounds simple enough, just remove the second receptacle and the length of wire, make sure everything on the first receptacle is wired up correctly and that should be it. But, after I removed the second receptacle the first one no longer works. Not only that, but now the third receptacle (the one on the opposite wall which is original to the house) is also no longer working.


There is another receptacle in the kitchen which is on the same circuit and it is working fine, so I'm assuming my problem is somewhere between there and the ones in the garage, but I can't find any obvious issues. I didn't do anything to outlet #3 (original to the house) and I know it worked before I started working on the other two, I removed its cover and everything looks secure. All wires are screwed on and not back-stabbed, so I don't think there is a loose connection there. Outlet #1 is just a white, black, and ground which I stripped back, cut off, and reconnected (white to silver, black to brass, ground to ground screw). Am I missing something somewhere?


I have one of those 3 prong circuit testers with the 3 lights. When I plug it in I get one bright amber light on the right which indicated an open neutral. I also get a dim amber light in the middle (the "open ground" light), but I'm not sure how significant that is. It seams like there is an open neutral somewhere, but I can't find any evidence of it.


Thanks for taking the time to read all this, and thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me!

[hkstroud]

Having a hard time following what you are trying to say.

Basically I have one 3 wire outlet coming out of the wall and connected to the first receptacle

Don't know what that means. How can you have an outlet coming out of the wall?

Do you mean you have a grounded receptacle, (hot, neutral and ground) which is on the same circuit as the kitchen outlet?

Not sure which garage receptacle you removed, the next one after the original garage receptacle or the last one.

That circuit should either be a GFCI circuit or the receptacles in the kitchen and the original garage receptacle should be GFIs. Obviously this in not a GFCI circuit which tripped due to ground fault (while you were doing your work) because the kitchen receptacle works. Also, if the kitchen receptacle is a GFI, it cannot be tripped due to a ground fault because it works.

That leaves, is the original garage outlet a GFI and has it tripped due to ground fault?