Some home outlets work, others don't in the same (double) receptacle

[Turbogus]

Since buying our first home we've noticed that there is no power to one side of some of the outlets in the living room. While others seem to wear heavily on bulbs in an old table lamp we have. Still another lamp, halogen floor lamp seems to suffer from low brightness and in both cases short bulb life. Being a novice electrician, limited to vehicle electrics I need some guidance on how best to proceed on repairing these and addressing this situation. I appreciate any methods, tool recommendations, etc. but the trouble is I can't afford a professional electrician despite working 7 days a week it's only on commission that I get paid.

Thanks and a lift of the lynch lid.
Gus

[HayZee518]

first off get a decent voltmeter, not some radio shack cheapy, next a clamp around ammeter. Ideal is OK, Greenlea digital is better. A fluke meter is ideal!
Now use the voltmeter and measure each phase to ground at the panelbox. A deviation of 2 volts is ok. If its drastic call the power company.
Next, trace the branch circuit wires in the basement of the suspected circuit. Look for junction boxes before the wire goes into the wall. check the connections for tightness especially the neutral.
another thing is check the wiring itself. Aluminum wires carry the biggest hazard, next copper clad aluminum, while better, also create a hazard.
find the first box in the chain of outlets and switches in that room you have problems. you'll need to remove outlets and switches from the boxes to take voltage readings. all the neutrals should be at the same potential - zero volts to ground.

[HayZee518]

if there are no ceiling lights in the room but there are two switches, one at one end and another at some other point, two or more outlets may be split wired. one-half of an outlet works off the switches, the other half are hot all the time. check this out.

[Turbogus]

Thanks HayZee, I'm heading down to our local hardware store today to find one of those plug in tattletales. My friend has a Fluke meter that I can likely borrow so it'll just come down to getting in to the crawl space under the house. Will post results as I find 'em.

[Turbogus]

So after checking the offending outlets in the living room with a Circuit Analyser (plug in type) I found that two of them checked fine, despite what my house frau reported, but one of them the table lamp that keeps eating incandescent bulbs. The last one however showed an Open Ground.
This last outlet is in what was formerly a bedroom whose walls were knocked down by the P.O. to extend the living room, so I doubt it's tied to the other circuit that feeds the two that tested good.
Come Saturday I'll pull the face off of the offending outlet and see if I can locate a burned, broken or missing ground.
My best friend loaned me his Fluke 87v that he used at HVAC school and while I've used a multimeter in automotive applications this is my first go with diagnosing AC issues.

[HayZee518]

check the incandescent bulbs themselves. newer ones [past 10 years] carry a 155 volt range - others are 120 give or take. If you can afford them use the CFL type. [Compact Flourescent Lighting]
check your panelbox for AFCI breakers. These were required in 1996 for personnel protection on only bedroom circuits. Nowadays they're required on ALL outlets. AFCIs are Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters. GFCIs are Ground Fault Interrupter and are required at all grade level outlets and around sinks and vanities at a six foot radius, measured from the center of the faucet.
For your meter always check on a live circuit first before you check a problem circuit [just to make sure it's working] also start at a voltage range higher than what you assume you will be measuring.
look for wires with black tape near the ends. these are taped to indicate a hot wire, usually off a switch loop. white wires can have this black tape so be careful.

[Turbogus]

Thanks again HayZee, in this fixture we have tried the CFL's with the same short lived reuslts. My novice thinking led me to believe as this fixture is from the '70's (family heirloom) I favored the incandescents. I doubt there are any AFCI breakers in this old (1968) home. I'm thinking I'm trying to detirmine voltage within 114-126 for service at the Breaker Box and 110-126 at point of use at the receptacles, but I could be wrong.

[Turbogus]

Edit: Reading up on AFCI breakers, apparently there are 'new' ones out there and many are remarking in another forum to trash the ones installed up to a couple of years ago. Somethind tells me in this consumer desert I live in that no one has even heard of the 'combination' AFCI breakers, or even if code requires them here in Oregon.

[Turbogus]

So with this Fluke meter I reckon I'm needing to check the difference of voltages from the wall socket to the service line from the breaker box. Is this correct? Are there any other tests I need/want to perform?

[HayZee518]

use the voltage range on the meter to test the voltage between earth ground or neutral at the panel box and each phase (2)
then once you visually inspect outlets and splices, check the voltage at the devices to the bare ground leg. you stand a better chance of reading a voltage between these two points rather than the neutrals because the neutral splices may be loose or be creating a high resistance.

[Turbogus]

Okay, got the skinny here, one of the outlets in the chain had reveresed Power and Neutral that I corrected. On that same outlet the ground wire had no continuity. The wire was copper (thank heavens) I reckon this would account for the halogen lamp blowing when we first plugged it into this outlet and turned it on.
Overall I'm hoping that this 'imbalance'? with one of the outlets wired backwards may have led to the eating up of incandescent and CFL bulbs on another of the linked outlets. I did replace the socket in that lamp (kind of a family heirloom) and looking at the old one closely there was some dark spots on the tang.
I used that meter at the outlets in the offending area, but I had to return the meter to my friend, at that they all showed between 119 - 121V
I hope this is the end of our electrical adventure now... on to the plumbing.