Plug in tester

[splinetto]

I used my plug in tester today and the lights lit up saying "hot and ground reversed" I havent found the problem yet....I am finding it hard to believe that someone hooked up the hot and ground wrong on a recep and even if they did Wouldnt it trip the breaker?...Any ideas?

 

[wirebender]

Had the same thing once. Turned out to be a lost neutral upstream. There were lighting loads (Xmas style) still connected to the receptacles on the circuit which I suppose were causing the funky reading.

 

[macmikeman]

I used my plug in tester today and the lights lit up saying "hot and ground reversed" I havent found the problem yet....I am finding it hard to believe that someone hooked up the hot and ground wrong on a recep and even if they did Wouldnt it trip the breaker?...Any ideas?

The reversed wiring on a receptacle outlet won't trip the breaker by itself. There is no direct connection from the grounded terminal to anything, until you either plug something into the socket, or you put the second grounded conductor onto the outlet, and that has a path back to the neutral busbar. So therefore, it is possible to have a reverse wired receptacle outlet and not trip a breaker.

 

[JohnJ0906]

Had the same thing once. Turned out to be a lost neutral upstream. There were lighting loads (Xmas style) still connected to the receptacles on the circuit which I suppose were causing the funky reading.

For some reason, if there is an open neutral, and a load on the circuit, a plug-in tester will read hot/ground reversed.

 

[splinetto]

I found the problem...There was 2 ckts going in a box to control 2 seperate loads and the nuetral "grounded cond" were criss crossed......Easy fix....after I crawled across the attic and lost 10 lbs of sweat...