120v on neutral, GFCI's and mysteriously working circuit

[homebrew]

Hey all I am new here as for posting but have been reading many post now for a while. Great site for alot of different types of info. Thanks for all the help so far. Hope this is in the right forum

Troubleshooting a circiut that is GFCI protected in the garage, which is also the cir for the bathrooms. All the bathrooms have their own gfi outlets. gfi in garage will trip all the time, meaning sometime instantly other times it can take upto 15 min or so. This particular gfi was wired with all other outlets down line on the load side. disconnected to trouble shoot testing other outlets on cir. when I did this the neutral instantly became hot in the box. Keep in mind that both neutrals become enrgized.
In another box in master bath 3 sets of romex junction, if either one of the outgoing lines,feeding the other 2 bathrooms, are energized both neutrals also become enrgized. This is seemingly true even without any devices, known, are connected.
Also when I connected the other baths to the line side of garage gfi it instantly tripped. Why would it trip if its all landed on the line side? Also any ideas about odd neutral voltage? There is no continuity between hot and neutral that I can read and obviously I read 120v from hot to ground and N to grd, nothing from hot to N.

I plan to go back and use light bulb test, and do some further investigation, looking for boxes that may be hidden etc., also try toning it out thursday.
Any insight would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks

 

[charlie b]

This isn't going to help with your troubleshooting, but it might help lead to a solution. In addition to some type of wiring error, you are also dealing with a code violation. 210.11(C)(3) does not allow a bathroom receptacle outlet to share a circuit with a garage receptacle outlet. A single circuit can have nothing but receptacle outlets in two or more bathrooms, so long as it has nothing but bathroom receptacle outlets, or it can have all the loads in a single bathroom, so long as it has nothing outside that bathroom.

I'll have to read through your description again, to try and understand the circuit problem that you are dealing with.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[kwired]

Is polarity of your circuit correct? IOW is the white grounded and the black ungrounded? Also is line and load of GFCI connected correctly?

You will have voltage on a load side conductor if the other conductor is still connected and there is a connected load. You have done nothing more than open the circuit at that point just like a switch does.

If you have voltage at your disconnected termination point as you described and the circuit is turned off then you have a cross connection someplace to another circuit, or maybe a MWBC and you opened the common neutral.

 

[augie47]

I had the same thoughts a kwired. Either somewhere the circuit is crosswired to another or it's part of a MWBC and you are getting neutral feedback.
While you are showing power on the neutral, try turning off other breakers and see what's sharing.

 

[billsnuff]

what type of meter are you using, analog or digital? don't know if it matters?

I read 120v from hot to ground and N to grd, nothing from hot to N.

MWBC with 2 ungrounded from the same phase?

Is anything in the panel handle-tied or two pole?

Is there a white on a breaker? (remarked)