clothes dryer electric 120v l1, 20v l2?

Question

I'm in the midst of trying to determine why my clothes dryer isn't heating. I started with all of the usual suspects like thermal fuses and what not. Then I started to test the power source at the back of the unit. I get 120V from neutral to L1 and 20V from neutral to L2, with 80V across L1 and L2.

If I test the receptacle I get 120V on each phase and 240 on both. However, I know that with the dryer plugged in it may be pulling a load even while off and thus I'm not sure how to interpret my strange results.

I'm going to remove the receptacle to see if I see any signs of damage but everything seems to be totally normal. Would a good next step be to check the breaker voltages at the panel while the dryer is plugged in and see if they still read 120/20? That way I could isolate it to being a breaker issue.

I have also already flipped the breaker off and on to see if that was the issue.

EDIT: Just pulled the receptacle out to test receptacle leads and I'm getting full power again and the heater works. I guess I'm going to re-wire and tighten all the leads on the receptacle. There are no scorch marks or anything that looks off, is it worth replacing, or likely just loose connection?

Answer 1

Just for anyone who may stumble across this, I think the connection on of the hot wires coming into the receptacle must have been loose. The other possibility is the genius who wired up the receptacle put it upside down (neutral on top) compared to way the plug was supposed to go in. So instead of the cable going down the wall it went up. I suspect this extra weight from the top of the plug could have been making the connection loose from the plug to receptacle.

To resolve this, I made sure to re-connect and tighten all of the wires in the receptacle, and flipped it right way up (ground on the top vs. neutral) so now the plug wire hangs down when plugged in. I am now getting a stable 120V to L1 and L2 and everything works fine. Wish I tested that before wasting a few hours fiddling around inside the dryer testing fuses!