First Off hello everyone, first post, but I'm sure y'all can help.

Just moved into a new house and my dryer cord was the old 3 prong style, while the house was the now standard 4 Figured I could handle changing it to 4 so that we could continue using the dryer.

Had a friend come over to help and I listened to him (not sure why) when he suggested plugging it in to make sure it fit. A big spark occurred because it wasn't plugged into anything I'm assuming and the 4 wire prongs were touching. I realize now this was extremely dangerous and quite dumb of me to do. This caused the breaker to trip I'm pretty sure.

Friend left cause he had some things to do so I figured Id just continue on. Plugged everything in I believe the correct way matched colors and connected the ground to a screw on the outside casing (the dryer had it's own ground and I didn't know if two grounds could be on top of each other). Then I shut the dryer breaker off and plugged it in. Flipped breaker to on, turned dryer on everything seemed to work. Few moments later I noticed a burning smell.

Now that you know the back story, my question is the burning smell most likely coming from the cord, the outlet, or both?

I really don't want this to be anymore un safe, should I go purchase a new cord? The part that goes into the outlet isn't black or discolored at all, but the wires that attach to the washer were burnt black and one had some melted metal. The outlet looks fine from the outside where the giant spark happened but if it were burnt it'd be hard to tell because the outlet is black.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated I don't have any experience with this stuff.

Thanks everyone

-Kelly

Thank you for your help Jeff.

Ok so I purchased the cord and replaced the burnt one. I noticed the same smell, I took pictures of how I hooked up the cord just so I could make sure there weren't any issues there. Does it look like I hooked it up correctly?

I'm going to assume if I hooked it up correctly, yet the smell persists I really messed it up bad and that like Jeff stated I should have an electrician come take a look at the outlet which I will be doing.