Faulty socket and weird readings

[HayMaker]

I'm just interested to hear potential causes of this. It has been tested by professional electrician but we are still waiting for them to come back and fix.

Basically - we have a socket behind our bedroom TV that has never worked. The electrician tested it and said he got weird readings (I don't know what they were). If we plug in the TV, it will not turn on. Yet if we plug in a phone charger (30w fast charger), it charges the phone.

I thought electricity either worked or it didn't; under what conditions might it only work for low-draw appliances but not others?

 

[pete01]

Broken TV? Maybe

 

[HayMaker]

Broken TV? Maybe

Nope, the TV works fine when plugged into a different socket that is known good

 

[jj4091]

Bad connection of either the cable or the internal pin holders of the socket. Did he take it off and look at all or just say he would be back.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Try plugging some other items in the socket.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I thought electricity either worked or it didn't; under what conditions might it only work for low-draw appliances but not others?

Sounds like, a poor high resistance termination somewhere.

 

[HayMaker]

Bad connection of either the cable or the internal pin holders of the socket. Did he take it off and look at all or just say he would be back.

He just said the reading was weird and he'd never seen those figures before. Still waiting for them to get back to us. I fear it's a lot of fiddly work that they don't want

 

[Jurassicspark]

If we plug in the TV, it will not turn on. Yet if we plug in a phone charger (30w fast charger), it charges the phone.

Does it actually though? Does the percentage even rise?

Yet if we plug in a phone charger (30w fast charger), it charges the phone.

Is the charger of a universal type?

The suggestion given by EFL is worth trying, but to reinforce it, try plugging in a load different from a charger. Something that pulls a moderate load and see if it fails to work.

Then plug in something that doesn't have a high load for example another charger or a lamp.

If it doesn't work for the former, but for the latter it does, it could be a high impedance neutral but for that most likely other sockets, connected to the same socket, would be at similar fault but a socket behind a TV is susceptible for being a spur taken off an original socket.

 

[ericmark]

My phone charger rated 100–250 volt, so any high resistance would not really affect how it works.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

He just said the reading was weird and he'd never seen those figures before. Still waiting for them to get back to us. I fear it's a lot of fiddly work that they don't want

I would suggest then, that the guy wasn't very experienced then..

 

[ericmark]

I would suggest then, that the guy wasn't very experienced then..

This is what I thought, I would consider until fault found, it is a fire risk, so would never leave it energised.

 

[Taylortwocities]

He just said the reading was weird and he'd never seen those figures before. Still waiting for them to get back to us. I fear it's a lot of fiddly work that they don't want

They won’t be back - If you’ve paid them up to now.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

They won’t be back - If you’ve paid them up to now.

Should have been on a 'no fix, no fee' basis, for such a simple job.