GFCI Outlet Problems

[Esking]

This may be lengthy, apologize in advance. As far as my electrical knowledge, no professional training, have done simple household stuff such as replacing outlets and light switches, and used to do a lot of car wiring in my younger days (20+ years ago). The problem I'm encountering is this:

We have 3 bathrooms (well, technically we have a Jack and Jill bathroom... Sink and toilet on either side and a tub in between, and then a master bathroom). There was a gfi outlet on one side of the Jack and Jill bathroom, the other bathrooms have regular outlets. At some point in time the gfi stopped working properly, been a year or 2 ago, and don't know what caused it to stop working. Bought a new gfci outlet, wired it up (correctly as far as I can tell. Hot black wire and the white neutral that comes out of the same sheath wired to line, other 2 to load... black on brass screws, white on silver screws, groundbwire to green screw), but once I flip the breaker on and plug in my outlet tester it shows open ground and open neutral and only 30 volts. The other 2 bathrooms' outlets don't get power at all with the breaker on, so I'm assuming the bathroom outlets are all on the same circuit. Pulled the other bathrooms' outlets out and inspected their wiring, visually everything looks fine, screws are tight, don't see and breaks in wires or loose connections. Any advice?

 

[westward10]

Temporarily connect the wires together without the GFCI.

 

[Esking]

Temporarily connect the wires together without the GFCI.

Not quite sure I understand. Connect the wires at the gfci outlet together? Can you elaborate further? Also, if I understand correctly, the master bathroom is at the end of the circuit. The gfci outlet has 4 wires, the other side of that bathroom has 4 wires, the master bath outlet has only 2 wires. Is that a correct assumption?

 

[westward10]

I can't assume anything but yes connect the wires together and see what happens.

 

[Esking]

I can't assume anything but yes connect the wires together and see what happens.

So black to black and white to white without the receptacle? Another note, the original gfi outlet that was taken out had a black wire on bottom left, and the other on the top right, same with the white wires, criss-crossed, and the outlets all worked fine for years. But everything I've seen says black on brass screws and white on silver screws. I have identified the black wire that is hot, not sure how to identify which of the neutral should be load and line, but I've tried them both ways and get errors either way. Have a multi-meter also, if that could help with diagnosing.

 

[BenCos18]

yep that's what he meant
match the colours to each other

 

[Esking]

yep that's what he meant
match the colours to each other

To what end? So I take the receptacle out of the picture, connect the 2 black wires together and same for the 2 white wires? Then what? Test the voltage? Stare at it? Get electrocuted by it? Just saying connect the wires together tells me nothing. For any serious replies, I've tried the wires in every combination I can on this outlet and it always results in either 30 volts with open ground and open neutral, or 30 volts with reverse hot and neutral. Now when I get reverse I'd think ok just switch where the hot and neutral wires are and it'd be fine, but nope. Really don't want to call an electrician for one outlet, I'll just make do without if it comes to that. Haven't had working outlets in the bathrooms for a couple of years as it is.

 

[westward10]

Get an electrician involved.

 

[BenCos18]

agreed
definitely seems like something worth doing imo
Something isn't right somewhere else most likely

 

[Megawatt]

Not quite sure I understand. Connect the wires at the gfci outlet together? Can you elaborate further? Also, if I understand correctly, the master bathroom is at the end of the circuit. The gfci outlet has 4 wires, the other side of that bathroom has 4 wires, the master bath outlet has only 2 wires. Is that a correct assumption?

What @westward is telling you to hook up the blacks together and hook up the white wires together and your equipment grounds together

 

[Megawatt]

To what end? So I take the receptacle out of the picture, connect the 2 black wires together and same for the 2 white wires? Then what? Test the voltage? Stare at it? Get electrocuted by it? Just saying connect the wires together tells me nothing. For any serious replies, I've tried the wires in every combination I can on this outlet and it always results in either 30 volts with open ground and open neutral, or 30 volts with reverse hot and neutral. Now when I get reverse I'd think ok just switch where the hot and neutral wires are and it'd be fine, but nope. Really don't want to call an electrician for one outlet, I'll just make do without if it comes to that. Haven't had working outlets in the bathrooms for a couple of years as it is.

Your tester is telling you that you have a loose neutral somewhere and that’s why you are getting 30 volts. Somewhere something that you have worked on is probably where the problem is. Plus and open ground so somewhere the ground has come loose also.