I have a GFCI in the garage that tripped and keeps tripping. I traced it to an outlet in the basement but there is something weird going on. I’m not an electrician, but I’ve done a bit of wiring, but I don’t know how to interpret this.

In the picture is the basement outlet pulled apart and the power is on and the GFCI is reset and working. This basement outlet has 3 14/2 cables coming in. I think one is power from the garage, and the other two lead to outlets outside the house. I checked the wires until I found 120V and then marked them with yellow tape, which is what is shown in the image.

However, if I connect the multimeter to the black/yellow and one of the other whites I get a reading of 101.8, and the other white reads 0.7. This shouldn’t be happening, right?

  • @dodecaOPEnglish
    3•5 months ago

    Thanks for the reply.

    You are right, the 101V one would trip the GFCI. I traced it to the backyard outlet. I connected everything else yesterday and left it like that and it was fine today.

    I went back to it again this evening, pulled apart the basement outlet and tested them all again. It was giving 122, 0.7 and 0.7, so no weird 101 today. I wired it all back together tonight and it’s not tripping. IDK what happened, but I think the outlet might have gotten wet. I pulled apart each outlet yesterday and put them back together better, but I can’t remember what order I did what. I’m going to leave it like this with a lamp for the next few days on so I’ll know if it trips again.