Expert Electrician

Common Problems with Outlet Receptacles

Here is a list of the most common problems that usually occur with the outlet receptacles and what you need to for sorting these issues. As you know there is not a single moving part in the receptacles but they always contain metal contact points inside the body. These metal points used to grip the hot, neutral, and groundings prongs on cord plugs.

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With time these begin to destroy and lose their gripping power and lose the ability to grip the plug. This situation creates a lot of problems in electrical wiring leads to circuit breakers to the trip. To sort out this issue you should turn off the power and replace the receptacle with the new one. Another major issue is loose wire connections that lead to losing the circuit break connection. When this situation occurs, a small amount of heat would be generated leads to all screws to loosen.

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Loose wire connections are notoriously insecure, which is why professional electricians rarely use these fittings to make wire connections. You need to tighten all the wire connections to make sure that they are now fully secured. In this way, the device won't be able to wiggle around while inserting or extracting plugs. A cracked or damaged receptacle is very harmful. Currently, all the modern receptacles use tough that rarely crack or break but older receptacles are made of Bakelite plastic that is susceptible to cracking.

You need to turn off and replace it with a new and better one. Sometimes lack of ground connection makes a lot of problems that usually occur because of losing connection between receptacle and the grounding wire. You should test the outlets and shut off power for inspecting the connection. Call a professional to make the necessary improvement in your system.