My father's clothes dryer stopped working on Saturday. He tested a number of components but because of the age of the dryer, he ended up ordering a new dryer from Lowe's. When they installed that today, the new one won't run, either.

He blew out his meter on Saturday trying to see if the 220v outlet was hot. At this point we are thinking the 220v breaker probably needs to be replaced, but he is 2,000 miles away, so I have no idea.

He is wondering if there is a way to test the breaker through the 220v outlet. His house is 50 years old this year. I doubt that breaker or outlet have been replaced in that time.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for helping me help him.

I believe the answer is yes using a volt meter and measuring both legs. You could also do the same thing at the breaker if the panel cover was removed. I could do it on my own but I will defer to one of the pros on here to describe in detail how to do it.

I’m in Alabama, if he’s close i will go help. Have meter will travel.

Yeah, you should get 220 volts with the meter leads on the 2 lines. 110 volts from each line to the neutral. Could be any number of things from the breaker, to the outlet, to the wiring......best to call a pro.

220v can really hurt you so I’d call an electrician.

I've been hit with 220 probably 20 years ago. It was very disturbingly signifiant. I had a sense that I got off easy, ... it hurt. Have him call someone if he's not sure.

I remember as a kid watching my grandfather install a water heater. After the leads were connected and power was restored, he licked a finger and crossed the hot posts to see if it was working. “Yep,” he said, “That feels like 220.” That was his meter. Lived to be 92 years old, died in his sleep.

Meters, we don’t need no stinkin’ meters!

It should be an easy test to see if both legs are hot. Just set the meter to AC and test the two hot feeds. Should be 220, with 110 from each hot to the common.

I could be confused (It has happened more than once), but though I've always called it 110/220, what I see on the meter is 120/240v.

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Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
I remember as a kid watching my grandfather install a water heater. After the leads were connected and power was restored, he licked a finger and crossed the hot posts to see if it was working. “Yep,” he said, “That feels like 220.” That was his meter. Lived to be 92 years old, died in his sleep.

Meters, we don’t need no stinkin’ meters!

It should be an easy test to see if both legs are hot. Just set the meter to AC and test the two hot feeds. Should be 220, with 110 from each hot to the common.

If the OPs father knew how to set the multimeter to the right setting (instead of ohms), he wouldn't have blown up the multimeter he had testing to see if it had 220 volts. He needs an electrician.



Slosig-Yes in the old days the electric was 110/220 volts, but in modern days they've upped the voltage standard to 120/240v and now 125/250v is the standard and what most utilities are supplying, the higher voltage is more efficient and uses less amps and almost all appliances and items don't have issues running on it.

I've seen this a few times. Get an amp clamp and put it on the 220v line to the dryer - if the line is energized.

Turn on the dryer and observe the amp draw when the breaker pops.

Should be a 35 ~ 40 amp service to the dryer and the dryer will be in the high 20's or very low 30's.

Most likely the breakers.

I’m no electrician but I work on low voltage items at work and I’ve been shocked a couple times. With that disclaimer I’ll say something similar happened to me. Dryer was acting funny and then finally stopped working. I got a new one, installed it myself and it wouldn’t work. It was a three prong 220 and when checking voltages I was getting odd readings that weren’t correct (I don’t recall exactly but I wasn’t getting 220 where I was supposed to). Just before I called an electrician to look at my breaker I decided to replace the wall outlet since mine was 35 years old. I figured it would only set me back $5 so I bought one and replaced it and that fixed the problem. I pulled apart the old receptacle and couldn’t figure out what was wrong (other than having paint and gunk on the terminals) but it worked after that. You can buy a cheap tester at Home Depot or Lowe’s. I’ve got friends that are electricians so they walked me through some troubleshooting. I really do not like electricity so I’m not about to touch the breaker panel.

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Originally posted by deepocean:

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Originally posted by jimmy123x:


If the OPs father knew how to set the multimeter to the right setting (instead of ohms), he wouldn't have blown up the multimeter he had testing to see if it had 220 volts. He needs an electrician.

Jimmy123x: I know you think you know everything, but my Dad knows his way around a meter. Something we do not understand happened. I would feel better if he has an electrician look at it for sure.

If he did blow up his meter, then I'd painfully agree with Jimmy. Dryers are dedicated circuits, they don't get any easier than that. There are only three failure points. Breaker, wire, and outlet. Given the age it will be a two wire circuit (two hots and ground).

Step one identify breaker. Two confirm it is proper amperage (30a). If 40a or 50a it needs to be changed because modern dryer cords are #10 which is only rated for 30a.

Step two read voltages across breaker terminals. It should read ~240v. If voltages are good there. Turn off breaker and check/tighten screws on breaker terminals and find the ground wire for the circuit and tighten.

Step three. With breaker off remove dryer outlet and examine for heat damage. This will be white, black, or gray residue on the outlet near the terminals or where plug blades plug in. Check for loose connections and tighten. Turn power back on and test across terminals. Hots should have 240v and L1-Ground and L2-Ground have 120v.

If you have power at breaker but not at the outlet terminals then it's a damaged wire, but that is extremely unlikely.

If the meter was set right (capital V with a wavy line on top or VAC) then there is no electrical failure that would ruin his meter without destroying other appliances and electronics in the house or causing lights in the house to seemingly to brighten and dim. That would be a power company problem like a lost neutral or one of the legs from power provider. It's possible he set his meter to DC (three hyphens above it and a single line on top or VDC).

I'd advise against having your father mess with any of this. 240v can kill, also due to the amount of time dryers run a loose connection can lead to a possibility of fire. If you ignore the warning, the easiest way to check most common problems without a tester is to replace both the breaker and the outlet. If the wiring is aluminum then he will need De-Ox compound applied to wiring during change outs.

What brand of breakers? If FPE, he should have entire panel replaced. FPE breaker have a tendency to not trip.

deepocean, based on the info you have provided and for your peace of mind have it checked completely by an electrician, including main panel. Even if you have to hire one for your Father.

If he does attempt it himself, make sure he turns off the main. If it's the original panel and there is no main, I'd recommend he not mess with it.

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I had him pull the meter out of the trash. He said the dial was set to 250v AC. Initially he was worried he had it set to DC, but he is 100% certain it was not set to test resistance.

Depending on the meter, he may have had the leads plugged into the wrong jacks.

And yes, buy a new DIGITAL meter, even if it is a relatively "cheaper" model. Like a Greenlee or some such Home Depot type unit...

And not to be a wimp, but after first that ensuring he has voltage, then turning off the main, be a total wimp and once again check for voltage, each leg to ground. It is rare for a disconnect to fail, and the best ones have knives that are very clearly visible and obviously not connected when the main switch is off, but they aren’t all that way. Better to be a wimp and verify what you “know” that to find out the hard way that what you knew was wrong...

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Originally posted by deepocean:
He said the 110v breaker was a snap-in model and simple to replace. I'm not sure how simple it is to do the 220v breaker. He was planning to shut off the main, take the cover off again (he's had it off a few times since that electrical storm) and take the 220v breaker to a local commercial supply house to match it up.

It is the same, just two sandwiched together in one plastic box with the two switches tied mechanically together. If you ever look at a 120/240 panel with the breakers out, you will see that the contacts that the breakers snap down onto alternate. Every other leg is L-1 and the ones in between are L-2. A 240 breaker snaps onto both L-1 and L-2 and it has two terminals to tie down output wires, one for each leg.

When he takes the breaker in to match up, as Skins pointed out, if the breaker is higher than 30 amps, it should be replaced with a thirty amp breaker of the same type, not whatever higher amperage the one being replaced is.

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Originally posted by deepocean:

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Originally posted by jimmy123x:
If the OPs father knew how to set the multimeter to the right setting (instead of ohms), he wouldn't have blown up the multimeter he had testing to see if it had 220 volts. He needs an electrician.

Jimmy123x: I know you think you know everything, but my Dad knows his way around a meter. Something we do not understand happened.

I know jimmy123x can be annoying, but, IMO he's got the right of it this time.

Assuming typical U.S. residential split-phase service, and assuming some weird, ginormous power surge wasn't occurring at the exact time he was doing whatever he was doing, or some other unlikely scenario, there's only one of two ways the meter could have "blown out": 1. Something was defective or aged and it just happened to give up the ghost at that time. (N.B.: This happened to me, but all that resulted was the meter mysteriously simply stopped working. There were no fireworks.) 2. Your dad screwed up.

No shame in screwing up. We've all done it. The important question is: Does he really know what he's about with electricity? From your description it rather sounds like he does not.

My reasoning: Nobody who knows what they're about with electricity has an appliance stop working, have their meter mysteriously "blow out" testing the electrical circuit, subsequently assume the problem is the appliance, then be mystified when a replacement appliance does not fix the problem.

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Originally posted by deepocean:
I would feel better if he has an electrician look at it for sure.

That would be my recommendation.

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Originally posted by deepocean:
I had him pull the meter out of the trash. He said the dial was set to 250v AC. Initially he was worried he had it set to DC,

That wouldn't blow the meter up even if he had, but if he plugged the one probe into the current (amps) jack, instead of the volts/ohms/continuity jack, it sure would. And trip the breaker, likely.

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Originally posted by deepocean:
I have no idea why the outlet arced. He's wondering if he should have set it to 1000v AC, but if things were working correctly no more than 240v should be coming through that circuit in any case.

See: This is why I'm counselling "get an electrician." If you, much less he, knew what you were about you'd know that anything much more than 250VAC on that outlet would've meant everything else in the home would've been smoking by then--for whatever branch circuits for which the breakers hadn't already tripped.

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Originally posted by deepocean:
He said the 110v breaker was a snap-in model and simple to replace. I'm not sure how simple it is to do the 220v breaker.

Similarly trivial. If you know what you're about.

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Originally posted by deepocean:
One of the most practical things I learned was a simple statement made by one of my EE professors ...

An EE you may be, but an electrician you are not.

I really, really don't mean to offend, but we're talking about lethal stuff that can kill you or burn down your house, and this is the blind leading the blind.

Please, please, please counsel him to hire somebody competent to look into this. Please.