"Hot" vent pipe

[Sir Dre]

Hi.
I recently was converting a fuse box to a junction box, taking the existing circuits back to a panel to land them on breakers.
In an attempt to group the correct neutral to its hot(s), I heated up a hot and was attempting to find its corresponding neutral.
(used a cord plugged into a newly installed GFCI protected outlet on a dedicated circuit from breaker in panel; hot to hot, neutral to neutral. A tester was plugged into an outlet that would complete the circuit).

I was trying this because my toner was malfunctioning. ( I was picking up a strong signal on every wire, not just the two that the transmitter was connected to).

Using my method with the cord, I was coming up with multiple circuits on multiple neutrals. An outlet that showed up correctly wired with a tester plugged in, showed the hot and ground reversed when connected to other neutrals. Mind you, these were three prong receptacles incorrectly installed in two wire locations.

I crawled into the attic and disconnected a white wire I found stripped and strapped to a vent pipe (plumbing vent). Something led me to put a multi meter on the vent pipe. Using the cord's hot, I would systematically heat up a hot in the panel. I would touch the prongs of my meter to the cord's neutral and to the vent pipe. When three of the six circuits in the panel (not originally on the same phase) were energized, the reading from the vent pipe to the neutral was 105 to 115 volts.

Question: Anyone experience this before? Opening a wall is not an option. All wiring in the attic looks good, only two instances of new work. Apparently I could hook everything up without pairing up to neutrals, and it would work, but that is not how I would like to operate.

Lastly, the lights worked as expected on one of the neutrals. Same hot, different neutral, fluorescents blinked, incandesents came on dimly.

Anyone seen something similar?

Thanks for all responses.

Sir Dre

 

[GoldDigger]

Lastly, the lights worked as expected on one of the neutrals. Same hot, different neutral, fluorescents blinked, incandesents came on dimly.

Anyone seen something similar?

Thanks for all responses.

Sir Dre

This says exactly one thing to me: the two neutrals that you mentioned are not in fact connected together, even at the panel bus.

The reason could be that one of the neutral wires is open, or maybe that you have a very high resistance connection somewhere along the way.
Possibly wires have been used without regard to color and some of the "neutrals" are really not.

 

[kwired]

I may not quite follow everything you said, but sounds like you have some Equipment grounding bootlegged from some neutral conductors.

If you lifted neutral conductors at the source end of the circuit then apply voltage to ungrounded conductors you will energized items that are connected to the bootlegged ground.

Your toner wasn't working very well because it was sending signal out on more then what you were trying to test. Any improper bonds of neutrals/equipment grounds was the link to everything else on the circuits effected.

 

[ptonsparky]

"Electricians" in the past have been known to tie all the whites together in a J box. Easier than sorting out which hot goes with which neutral. Real PIA when you have to follow up. You may have the enviable task of opening up all the boxes. Hint: It is in the last box.

 

[ptonsparky]

I hope the weren't jumping a neutral to the EG, as Kwire suggests. I've seen it often enough though.