This afternoon, my mother changed the exterior outlet she wanted me to plug into. She’s very electrically savvy, so she knew that would have to be done since the outlet was more than 40 years old and only half of it worked. While she was out getting parts, I tested the existing outlet to see what kind of shape it was in.

The left side of the outlet claimed to have an open neutral (white) while the right side registered as being correctly wired. I then tested the outlet with the multimeter and it only registered 90 volts!

My mother removed the existing outlet and gently sanded the oxidized copper wiring to improve connectivity. We retested the wires with the multimeter and got a voltage of 122. Now that we knew the wiring was good, it was a simple matter to wire in a new outlet and double check the connections with the tester before I plugged in.

This exercise reminded me to keep checking outlets before I plug in and this advice goes to both RVers and hosts. If you want to offer someone a connection while they’re parked on your property, make sure that it’s on its own circuit, that it’s wired correctly, and that it registers the proper voltage.