1 volt / 0 amps at wall socket

I've just discovered I have a dead receptacle in my house.

It's one I would have replaced shortly after moving in, when I added grounding so I could put a 3-prong receptacle in.  I can only assume I checked to see if it worked at that time (20 years ago?).  It's been behind furniture for a long time so I can't really pinpoint when it went out of service.

It has a single black wire and single white wire too it, plus the ground.  I assume that means it's the last plug on this branch.  Connections there are tight.

Sampling across the lug screws gives me 1 volt AC / 0 amps.  Touching the volt meter leads to each other shows 0 volts.

We've had several renovation projects so I can only assume somebody disconnected this branch somewhere upstream, but I have no idea where that might be.

It's that single volt that's worrying me.  If this outlet is dead, that's one thing.  But if it's still energized but barely getting power because of a bad connection elsewhere, that's something else.

I know the basic basics of home electrical, but not much more.

Can anybody take an educated guess what I'm looking at?  Thanks.

Putting an ammeter across the terminals creates a dead short. If the circuit was live, you have a blown fuse in your meter now.

Volt = across the load, neutral to hot.

Amps = in line with the load. Disconnect 1 wire and put one lead on the wire and the other on the terminal you disconnected the wire from.

On the bright side, if your meter didn't let the smoke out, you know you have a dead circuit. Now you need to figure out where.

In reply to ShawnG :

Did not blow the fuse in the multimeter.  No smoke, no sparks, no pop. Meter still seems to be alive.

For volts, I touched the probes to opposite sides of the receptacle where the neutral and hot screw into the outlet.  Did the same for amps but I guess being stupid did answer the question.

But what about that 1 volt?  Is that real, or measurement noise?  It's an older but very good Fluke meter.

[edit]  Am I correct in assuming this receptacle is the terminus of the branch?

Thanks!

The assumption that it's the end, is correct. Look at the receptacle to the left,  are all 4 wires connected? How about the one to the right? Did someone clip the connection between the top and bottom on either of those? That 1V is just ghost voltage, 0 amps behind it. 

The 1 volt is probably an induced voltage in the wire from another circuit running next to it.

I will have to pull the adjacent receptacle to the left and see, which will be a pain because LOTS of electronic / computer stuff is plugged into that outlet.  However, it's also one I replaced long ago and I can only assume 25-years-ago me would have checked the dead one was working at that time, and no one has opened the adjacent box since then.

Unfortunately the leads to the dead one go up into the wall, not down.  If they went down I would have a fighting chance of finding it in the crawl space and tracing it.

ShawnG said:

The 1 volt is probably an induced voltage in the wire from another circuit running next to it.

Exactly. 

Keep in mind the meter has a fuse dedicated to just the amp measuring circuit. All other functions will work with a blown amp fuse it just will always say zero amps.

In reply to dculberson :

Oh, if it's only reading 1 volt, on a 120VAC circuit, I am positive, there is no amperage on it! 
it's just induces low level "noise"

Doesn't mean his fuse is intact, for future checks, but not a hazard here. 

It's pretty common for a neutral to "vibrate" loose over time.  The 60hz oscillation actually makes micro-vibes in the molecular surface of the conductors and slowly degrades the conductivity until it reaches a threshhold where it stops or reduces ampacity.  You'll have to trace back until you find voltage.  My guess is you'll find a crusty wire nut on a white somewhere upstream.  Just cut the bare copper off the end, strip it back another inch, and re-nut.

One volt is just phantom/inductive voltage.  Nothing to worry about at that outlet, but it does give me pause as to what is broken upstream.

The real fun is finding what "upstream" is.  One of my best investments was a tone generator.  Turn off the breaker for that circuit, connect the tone generator to the (now dead) output black on the breaker, and take the wand to the outlets/switches/etc to find which ones beep.  Super helpful.

Just out of curiosity, did you check both hot and neutral to ground? 

That will help determine if it's a bad connection on neutral (with 120v) still on the hot, or if the hot is dead. 

I'd also test with any light switches in the room turned on in case it was connected to a switched circuit ar some point in the renovations. If you have a mystery switch that no one know what it does, I would also check with that on and off. 

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Those tone generators are good for finding broken wires in a car, too.

The first time I used one, I found that the tone stopped in the middle of an extremely difficult to get to section of harness, so I just doubled the wire between two sections that were easy to get to.

You might be able to use a stud finder to follow where the wire or conduit goes. Some of the fancier ones now can see wires in walls.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

It's pretty common for a neutral to "vibrate" loose over time.  The 60hz oscillation actually makes micro-vibes in the molecular surface of the conductors and slowly degrades the conductivity until it reaches a threshhold where it stops or reduces ampacity.  You'll have to trace back until you find voltage.  My guess is you'll find a crusty wire nut on a white somewhere upstream.  Just cut the bare copper off the end, strip it back another inch, and re-nut.

One volt is just phantom/inductive voltage.  Nothing to worry about at that outlet, but it does give me pause as to what is broken upstream.

The real fun is finding what "upstream" is.  One of my best investments was a tone generator.  Turn off the breaker for that circuit, connect the tone generator to the (now dead) output black on the breaker, and take the wand to the outlets/switches/etc to find which ones beep.  Super helpful.

These are the bomb. Even the cheap Hammer Store version works fairly well.

I have the Klein version on all of my work trucks. It will chase an energized circuit as well as a dead one. The time saved hunting for a breaker, broken connection, or chasing a wire across a building is significant and more than enough to pay for the tool. 

My problem is that this receptacle is isolated from whatever its circuit used to be.  I can see how a tone generator would be useful, but not in this case.

In reply to Duke :

So use it in reverse.  Plug the tone generator into the outlet and follow the tone back to the next junction in the circuit.  They work through walls.  That will let you trace back to where you have power and you know your problem is likely at that next box upstream.