My outlet has been burned out for the last few months, and today I figured I'd try replacing the outlet. I had everything hooked up right and was even getting power to it, but whenever I plugged something into it, the socket sparked and my fuse blew and that was annoying me because most of my rooms outlets are on the same breaker. so I tried to put everything back the way it was using the burnt out old socket but I snapped the ground wire off accidentally while I was trying to jerk it out of the wall. Basically I'm at a loss for what to do, is my only option to keep that breaker off until I have an electrician look at it or can I electrical tape the cables to keep them from doing anything? I already tried soldering the ground lead back on but I can't solder for shit and I gave up.

Can you ground to the box with the existing wire and then run a new one from the box to the outlet so you can hook it back up? I think it grounds through the mounting screws to some extent, too.

Or cap the wires should only be 1 that's hot) with wire nuts. That'd be safest since you seem to have a short but you could try to connect them and bypass that outlet so you don't lose the others while you wait.

>>2610197 (OP)

>whenever I plugged something into it, the socket sparked and my fuse blew



How can this happen. Your device cannot blow a fuse by being applied to any two wires in the wall. Two hots, two neutrals, two grounds, hot to neutral, hot to ground, neutral to ground. None of those can do what you claim.



Your house is haunted. Get out now.



Actually, I'm probably overlooking something, but yes, you can tape all the wires away from each other and turn the power on.

>Your device cannot blow a fuse by being applied to any two wires in the wall.



Maybe his device shorts ground to neutral which ordinarily won't trip the breaker, and is probably against the rules, but if it does and OP swapped hot and neutral then the device will do what he described.

>>2610197 (OP)

> solder ground lead

Grounds must have a mechanical attachment, not solder, so your failure was good here



> burnt out

Not sure how you managed to burn an outlet out. What the hell are you plugging into it?

Perhaps a kitchen outlet where each one is from a different leg-- his old outlet may.hace had the tabs broken and he didn't notice on the new one

a bidet

>>2610197 (OP)

it arced against your grounded metal box when you disturbed it by plugging in because you did not wrap the outlet in electrical tape after securing the wires.
