[larrypaz]

Yesterday I had three outlets in my living room stop working, but the rest of the house lights and outlets worked OK. I measured the voltage on the outlets that stopped working with a digital meter and they measured 20 volts. This house has the older round screw in type of fuses, with the 60 amp cartridge style main fuses. The outlets are just the older, two prong style outlets. I removed all of the fuses, including the mains, waited about an hour and inserted all of the fuses. I checked the voltage again, and the volts measured 122 volts on the outlets that were previously not working.

I plugged in a power strip going to the TV and a dsl modem into the outlets and within about 10 minutes , I lost power on the TV. Again, all the other outlets and lights in the house were working OK. I checked the voltage again, and again it measured around 20 volts. I pulled all the fuses again, and this time I replaced all the fuses with new fuses, and waited about an hour again. This time when installing the fuses, the voltage stayed around 20m volts on the outlets instead of coming back to 120 volts again.

So, does anyone know why the fuses are not blowing, and is this an indication of a bad outlet somewhere or bad wiring? If it's the wiring, shouldn't the fuse be blowing?

[ballengerb1]

It is not a problem with your fuses so you can stop changing them. Trace the feed back to before the first bad outlet. Check for power leaving the previous outlet and then check the power entering the box of the first bad outlet. I suspect you have a loose connection on the hot side

[larrypaz]

Ok. Thanks for the advice. I'll check the other outlets and see if I can find a loose connection or check to see if I find any bare wires.