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I've got a house where lots of duplex sockets are wired through a single Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI)

I'm pretty sure this is the appropriate diagram.

Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter System

There is a GFCI socket on the inside wall of the garage. Based on occasional outages, I'm pretty sure that single GFCI "controller" drives simple duplex outlets on the outside of the house, plus in the garage next to the water softener, and finally in the laundry room behind the washer and gas dryer.

What's odd is, all of a sudden, the gas dryer doesn't work, while the washing machine works just fine. If I swap the two plugs in the wall, the issue is clearly one half of the duplex.

And yesterday, my son mentioned that one of the outside sockets on the patio didn't seem to be working.

This leaves me scratching my head. The house was built in 2007. Not that old. I'd be surprised they would drop in two complete sets of wires, one for each half of a duplex outlet.

Any ideas on what could be going on? Note, I'm about to take Volt Ohm Meter readings on all the sockets.. I'll update the question in a few minutes...

I did a few measurements:

 - Garage Plug @ water softener.  Top = 120vac, Bottom = 120vac
 - Laundry Room  Top = 119.6vac, bottom = 55.6vac  <--- Ugh.
 - Outside on the patio.  Top = 120vac, Bottom = 120vac

I'm not totally sure how these things are wired. I do know that in this house, some of those small duplex boxes have a whole lot of wire tie junctions within them. I remember the water softener duplex box was particularly ugly.

zipzit
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    Can you get us photos of the insides of the receptacle boxes involved please? – ThreePhaseEel Sep 05 '21 at 01:05
  • Sounds like a broken socket. Take the Eel's photos. Then **check the socket for broken [tabs](https://diy.stackexchange.com/a/168565/47125)** (I doubt it) and just swap another receptacle in to see if that fixes it. Receptacles are $3, or for those who think all things are the same quality, 60 cents lol. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Sep 05 '21 at 01:23

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