All the devices on one of my breakers randomly stop working, and when checked with a multimeter, I see that the outlets are giving a voltage of ~8V rather than the ~125V I usually get. When I check that breaker at the panel, I get ~125V as I should.
What's extra strange is that this seems to be associated with my dryer, but I can't imagine how. The dryer is on a totally separate breaker from the one that keeps dying. But when this happens, I have to flip the dryer breaker and the other one, and then turn on the dryer, and then boom all the other devices power up again the second I turn start the dryer. I've done this three times now, so I really doubt that it's just coincidence.
Note: My dryer is ghetto rigged. It has two dials: an on-off dial and a timer dial. A while back, the on-off dial stopped working. I opened up the dryer, and hardwired past on-off button so that it just starts as soon as you move the timer dial. In doing so I left a third wire that was connected to the on-off button just hanging out - unconnected with electrical tape covering it. I did check to make sure that the chasis was still grounded. That "fix" has been working for 7 months before issue started. I'm not sure if its related, but I just want to give as much info as possible.
Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated - Thanks!