I got a call from a landlord, & stopped by his rental to check out the loss of power to receptacles in a bedroom. I got a 2nd call from him before I got there & said I would call him when I found the problem. My tester showed an open neutral. I replaced a bad receptacle switch in the next room. 3rd call from the landlord. I said I replaced a switch, but not found the open neutral. I said I would call when I found it. I found the receptacle with the incoming cable & both the black ungrounded and white grounded conductors showed 120v. The problem was somewhere ahead of this room. Call #4 from the landlord, I tell him what I found. He said I did not know what I was doing, as he was an electrical engineer, & said both the black & white wires are always hot. I tried to explain in vain, then said I would put everything back in place & hung up. I ignored 2 more calls while restoring, then informed the tenant of the hazardous wiring in her baby's room. She said her landlord was working as a realtor. I will even request payment for jobs like this. What more should I do, warning notice in writing, inform Bldg. Dept.?
Open Neutral Wiring
- Thread starter mwbrown
- Start date
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Both the black & white showed 120volts.... To what? Ground?
Of course! If the neutral is open, you have 120volts of potential. Until you locate the open neutral, it will read 120volts.
I would have told this 'electrical engineer' to come right out and point out to me where the problem is.
As for the landlord working as a realtor, I don't understand what that has to do with anything.
What to do? You got called to do a job. You attempted to do the job, but were 'fired' before you could complete it. Document it and send the guy a bill.
Of course! If the neutral is open, you have 120volts of potential. Until you locate the open neutral, it will read 120volts.
I would have told this 'electrical engineer' to come right out and point out to me where the problem is.
As for the landlord working as a realtor, I don't understand what that has to do with anything.
What to do? You got called to do a job. You attempted to do the job, but were 'fired' before you could complete it. Document it and send the guy a bill.
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Suggestion for future troubleshooting like this: Carry around the female end of a 3-wire extension cord that is plugged into a knwon-good receptacle, and use a solenoid-type tester and not a volt-meter to test for hot and grounded conductors against the reference hot, neutral, and ground in the cord.
Michael15956
Senior Member
- Location
- NE Ohio
Larry,LarryFine said:
I don't understand, what's the difference?
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
A volt-meter has a high input impedance; it requires very little current, so it provides very little load on the wire. Because of this, it easily measures induced voltages caused by unenergized wires merely in close proximity to energized wires, aka phantom voltages.Michael15956 said:
A solenoid tester, on the other hand, uses enough current to bring the induced voltage down to zero, so it only registers real voltage. The idea is to use the tool for the job. If you need to know the voltage, especially of a circuit under load, use a volt-meter.
If you need to determine the presence of power, use a solenoid tester. Also, even a non-contact tester has its place for showing voltage to earth, not another conductor, such as when trouble-shooting a circuit with an unknown neutral or ground condition.
Open Neutral Wiring
Thanks for the responses. Both the black ungrounded and white (should be grounded) source wires showed 120v. to ground. I would expect to find that the white, neutral wire had been pushed into the black side of an upstream receptacle body, thereby interupting (opening) the grounded path back to the service panel, and energizing the white wire downstream. I am concerned about safety and my liability. I think now I should invoice the landlord for my time and detail the hazardous condition in writing to cover my back.
Thanks for the responses. Both the black ungrounded and white (should be grounded) source wires showed 120v. to ground. I would expect to find that the white, neutral wire had been pushed into the black side of an upstream receptacle body, thereby interupting (opening) the grounded path back to the service panel, and energizing the white wire downstream. I am concerned about safety and my liability. I think now I should invoice the landlord for my time and detail the hazardous condition in writing to cover my back.
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
No arguement, but I'd rather mistake a non-energized conductor as being energized than the other way around. Just today, I had one indicate both circuits in a J-box as live when one was definitely de-energized. A wiggy showed the truth.tallguy said:
I mentioned them because they don't require a reference conductor against which to measure; they use the earth about us. If there is a potential (pun intended
) shock hazard, they'll react first. Better safe than sorry.
al hildenbrand
Senior Member
- Location
- Minnesota
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
Groan-n-n-nLarryFine said:If there is a potential (pun intended
dbuckley
Senior Member
- Location
- Canterbury, New Zealand
al hildenbrand said:Groan-n-n-n
The "current job" phrase seems to be popping up a lot recently.
These puns are pretty rough...
tallguy
Senior Member
LarryFine said:
Certainly, except that I generally only use the NCV in situations where the wiggy isn't an option...
For instance, I need to tap into a cable in an attic to add a such-and-such -- I've got cables coming up and then down to the receptacles (luminaires are easier of course). How can I be sure of what is what? This is particularly so when there are receptacles on different circuits sharing a common wall. Ideally I'd like to shut off the circuit in question, use the NCV to verify the proper cable, and then cut.
Never seems to work that way though as there is inevitably cross talk between the two circuits.
How do others handle this conundrum?
hurricaneflyer
Member
Tallguy,
In the attic, in the same curcumstances as what I think you are talking about and using a non-contact tester, After having tapped into the wrong circuit once and blowing out a forty dollar pair of klines another time, I changed methods. Now I kill the power to the circuit I want to tap into and use a wire/circuit tracer to identify the wire I am after.
My wire tracer only works with romex as far as I can tell. It is a less expensive model, but mabe the better ones will pick up the signal through MC and such.
It does however have adjustable sensitivity and I have not picked the wrong wire since I started using it (with romex)
In the attic, in the same curcumstances as what I think you are talking about and using a non-contact tester, After having tapped into the wrong circuit once and blowing out a forty dollar pair of klines another time, I changed methods. Now I kill the power to the circuit I want to tap into and use a wire/circuit tracer to identify the wire I am after.
My wire tracer only works with romex as far as I can tell. It is a less expensive model, but mabe the better ones will pick up the signal through MC and such.
It does however have adjustable sensitivity and I have not picked the wrong wire since I started using it (with romex)
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