Paul in Maryland

Greetings,
One of my kitchen sockets--or rather, the box to which it's attached--has begun to quietly beep, even when nothing is plugged in. The pattern is: 1 beep, silence, 2 beeps, silence. This cycle repeats about 28 times a minute.

Shutting off the circuit stops the beeping.

As a first step, I tried to remove the socket:



But as you can see, the white and black wires are connected behind the cabinet wall, to this:



It's this box that's doing the beeping.

How do I fix this?

__________________
Paul in Maryland (USA)

JoeD

It is not the socket. It is something else nearby on the same circuit. There is no way a socket can beep unless there is some insect(like cricket) in it.

joecaption

Check the battery in the smoke detector.

Paul in Maryland

I can assure you, it's not the smoke detector. That beep would be obstreporously loud, This beep was muffled until, on a hunch, my wife opened the cabinet door. The closer I put my ear, the louder it sounds. I shot a video of the box from 2 feet away. But my camera's audio pickup ends at 11,000 Hz; this beep is so high-pitched, it's barely audible in .

__________________
Paul in Maryland (USA)

JoeD

There is nothing in that box that can beep. It is not the box. Where does the conduit lead? Perhaps the sound is coming up the conduit from the other end. Search the room there is something else beeping. Put a towel over the box and see what happens.

Daddytron

try replacing the outlet, it's a cheap and easy way to check the situation

__________________
Over budget and behind schedule...
That's how I roll :)

CallMeVilla

Outlets should not "beep." There is no mechanism for them to do that. Turn off the breaker, replace the outlet, turn on the power. Take two aspirins, post back to us.

joecaption

May sound silly but, the wiring is run through conduit, that sound could be in a completly differant area of the house near the other end of the conduit and traveling through it until it gets to that box which acts like a mini speaker.
May sound like a wild idea, but anyone old like me remembers there was whole apartment buildings that had nothing more then a hollow pipe all the way from the lobby to your apartment for an intercom several floors away.
Other things that can make a high pitched sound, A CFC light bulb that is connected to a dimmer switch, a transfomer for a door bell, a reguler floresant light fixture on a dimmer switch.

nealtw

I would bet that you have insect inside the socket, shorting out the contacts.