senoirbubbles
Member
- Location
- Clearwater, Florida
I have a customer who is complaining of getting shocked at times from several locations throughout his house when he touches the plate screw. I did find in one location a nicked wire that likely was energizing the metal box.It read 120v to neautral when i used my tester. Fixed it,all is well in that location.The house is an old two wire system without ground so the box was not grounded and breaker never tripped.
Now here is where I am confused several of the switches through the house cause my ideal"tick tester" to beep when I touch the screws. When I use my Ideal digital voltmeter I read 31 or so volts from the plate screw to a nearby outlet neutral( no ground in the house to put meter lead to). I checked one box and there where no visible nicks in the wire.Though I have yet to pull all of them apart and look for hot wires touching the boxes I have a feeling there aren't any nicked wires. I know from experience that the digital meter will read voltage when there isn't necessarily any voltage on the wire. Is there actually voltage on the screw? Is this a phantom reading? Should I stick to my Wiggy which shows no voltage there?Do I tell the customer that there is nothing to worry about or do I start tearing the switches apart looking for faults?
As a side note this house has plenty of handyman work in it. Most of the switches are digital timers or "insteon" switches. And i have found at least one new 12/2 wire ground tied into and old wire neutral to create a grounded light.
Please excuse If the subject has been covered before I had no luck with the search engine.
Now here is where I am confused several of the switches through the house cause my ideal"tick tester" to beep when I touch the screws. When I use my Ideal digital voltmeter I read 31 or so volts from the plate screw to a nearby outlet neutral( no ground in the house to put meter lead to). I checked one box and there where no visible nicks in the wire.Though I have yet to pull all of them apart and look for hot wires touching the boxes I have a feeling there aren't any nicked wires. I know from experience that the digital meter will read voltage when there isn't necessarily any voltage on the wire. Is there actually voltage on the screw? Is this a phantom reading? Should I stick to my Wiggy which shows no voltage there?Do I tell the customer that there is nothing to worry about or do I start tearing the switches apart looking for faults?
As a side note this house has plenty of handyman work in it. Most of the switches are digital timers or "insteon" switches. And i have found at least one new 12/2 wire ground tied into and old wire neutral to create a grounded light.
Please excuse If the subject has been covered before I had no luck with the search engine.