black neutral in box MWBC

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danickstr

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i found a black neutral and wanted to know if most people put fear into the homeowners when they see this type of thing. I do not see an immediate fire hazard, but did say that I thought it was a serious condition that I would have to diagnose. This is a huge house with many remodels tied together, not often well in the electrical area.

I do not like to get people really worried, and since they are ready to have me fix it, I will just proceed, but what is my liability if i do not find it right away and the house burns down, for example. I have other jobs and cannot drop it all just to run over to this one.
 
your liability is only determined by the creativeness of a wide-eyed lawyer after the fact. if you have touched it and they want to proceed, make safe (de-energize) until work can be performed, otherwise the sky is the limit if something happens.
 
i have come across "rigs" here and there--like a time i went to a woman's house who worked for one our customers. she had some living room outlets not working. i found a "french neutral" and some wires that had come loose in a splice. i made that outlet right and fixed the outlet problem--- and made no mention of what i found because she didn't ask me. i thought about looking further but didn't want to cause her to worry about the rest of her home!!! some of these handymen can really find some "unreasonable wiring methods"! i really think they take everything loose and start re-splicing and changing wires until everything works.....
 
My favorite was opening a panel in an industrial building and finding a note from the maintenance electrician that said: "be careful in here, someone used a green for a hot." Signed with his name. Sure enough there was a #12 green wire attached to a 277 circuit breaker for a lighting circuit. After pointing out to the maintenance supervisor that the panel end of the green wire was not nearly as dangerous as the other end, I got permission to replace it. And add it to the bill. There was no warning at the far end as I suspected. That wire passed through 2 J boxes on the way to the bank of fluorescents, with no markings. I kept the note as a conversation piece.
 
sorry I did not make this clear: it is a blackened neutral not a color black one. the last inch or so of it at the neutral bus bar is discolored. Did not mean to make it ambiguous, and would still appreciate input.
 
danickstr said:
sorry I did not make this clear: it is a blackened neutral not a color black one. the last inch or so of it at the neutral bus bar is discolored. Did not mean to make it ambiguous, and would still appreciate input.
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That is probalby dues to excess heat at the termination. It's likely that it was or still is loose. I would cut back several inches of wire, strip it and terminate it in another hole in the neutral bar.
 
dankest said:
The more i read about MWBC the less I like them.
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For what it's worth, unless this were a situation where harmonics played a part, being a MWBC may have helped to prevent a catastrophic failure of the neutral since it was only carrying the unbalanced load.
 
infinity said:
That is probalby dues to excess heat at the termination. It's likely that it was or still is loose. I would cut back several inches of wire, strip it and terminate it in another hole in the neutral bar.
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Yes, I have seen a half dozen of those in one panel. One that was really black and several that were turning black. All loose, poor quality install. Easy repair if there are extra spaces. I would check to see if the rest of the connections are tight.
 
danickstr said:
sorry I did not make this clear: it is a blackened neutral not a color black one. the last inch or so of it at the neutral bus bar is discolored. Did not mean to make it ambiguous, and would still appreciate input.
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Oh. That's a whole different animal. I would try and get there ASAP in that case. And do as the others suggested.
 
Also check to see if they used thin breakers and that they have the hots on different phases.

Sometimes guys get so used to doing black, red, black, red that when they use thins they forget that it's black, black, red, red.
 
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