Dumb Outlet Wiring Question

[Casey69]

Got a weird (to me) outlet wiring problem. So the outlet just tripped the gfci this morning and the reset didn’t work. It had been working fine until today. So I got a new outlet and noticed that one of the neutral wires is wrapped and marked with the black “hot” wire. (see pic-hot marked wires are on the left in the gang box pic). Any thoughts on how this gets wired up? Just putting the hot/black wires on one side and the neutral/white wires on the other isn’t working. And this outlet feeds the lights and everything else downstream.

BTW, Disregard the white wire with electrical tape. Had what appeared to be a nick in the insulation and i wrapped it. Also, it looks like there are black wires behind the ground and white wire marked as hot, these are just shadows…it’s dark in there : D

 

[sparky 1971]

Hopefully you have a meter to verify, but I would guess that the black and white marked hot is the line side. If you have a meter, check to see if you have 120ish volts across the black and white. If you do then it's the line side for sure. The other black and white would then go to the load side.

Now that that is out of the way, GFCI's don't trip and fail to reset for no reason. There is a chance the GFCI is bad, but if the new receptacle doesn't reset, you have a ground fault. Or if you don't have a meter and managed to reverse the line and load, it won't reset either.

 

[The Cobbler]

.... Just putting the hot/black wires on one side and the neutral/white wires on the other isn’t working. ....

as mentioned above, you need to pay attention to the line /load terminals .

 

[Casey69]

Ok. I’ll check it with a meter and see what I can find out.

Also, what’s the rationale for marking a white wire as hot? Just wondering from an electrician standpoint…

 

[pattenp]

Was part of outlet controlled by a switch? Usually a white marked as hot is a switch loop.

 

[Casey69]

Outlet isn’t switched. Lights and fan are out too. It’s a bathroom.

 

[slimpickins]

... Just putting the hot/black wires on one side and the neutral/white wires on the other isn’t working. And this outlet feeds the lights and everything else downstream.

Not to be repetitious but this statement sounds like you think the hot/black wires are interchangeable and the two neutral/white wires are interchangeable. They are not.

A GFCI is NOT like a standard duplex outlet where the two brass/hot screws are common and it doesn't matter how you hook up two hot wires to those terminals, or the two white wires on the silver terminals.

On a GFCI outlet IT ABSOLUTELY matters which terminals you connect the LINE (hot and neutral) wires to. You need to identify the LINE side of the circuit (hot and neutral) and the LOAD side of the circuit and connect the wires appropriately to the terminals marked LINE and LOAD which are clearly labeled on the back of the GFCI receptacle.

To put this another way, the LINE hot and the LOAD hot wires are NOT interchangeable. Likewise the LINE neutral and the LOAD neutral are NOT interchangeable.
If you interchange these, you will not have GFCI protection on the local plug, but all of the downstream plugs will be dead if the GFCI trips.
Sorry if you already know this, but I thought it should be clarified ... for others as well.
SP

 

[sparky 1971]

Ok. I’ll check it with a meter and see what I can find out.

Also, what’s the rationale for marking a white wire as hot? Just wondering from an electrician standpoint…

It looks to me like a black and white are marked hot. That's a way to mark the line side of the GFCI during the rough in. I twist the hot and neutral together, but there's nothing wrong with the way it's been done.

 

[sparky 1971]

To put this another way, the LINE hot and the LOAD hot wires are NOT interchangeable. Likewise the LINE neutral and the LOAD neutral are NOT interchangeable.
If you interchange these, you will not have GFCI protection on the local plug, but all of the downstream plugs will be dead if the GFCI trips.
Sorry if you already know this, but I thought it should be clarified ... for others as well.
SP
[/QUOTE]


For the last 10 years o so GFCI's have been designed to trip and not reset at all if line and load are reversed.

 

[Casey69]

Thanks guys. I tested the wires and only one is hot (the black one in the yellow sleeve marked “hot”. The remaining 3, including the black one, have no voltage. I moved the hot one to the left in the pic.

Assuming the single hot is the Line, I just hooked up the hot/black to the line connection. Along with the white neutral to the Line neutral. Then attached the black that had no voltage to the black/hot Load connection. And the white to the white Load connection. Then attached the ground.

Still dead. I think it’s time to have an electrician onsite to check it out.

In the meantime, I did hook up a regular outlet and everything works fine and lights on.

 

[PCustoms]

The two wires with the yellow sleeve marked "HOT" are your line side. Black goes to line hot (usually brass), white goes to line neutral (usually silver). In your picture, these are the bottom 2 screws

The other set of wires is the load (goes to fixture or another outlet). Wire those to load the load side, same screw coloring as above. These are the top screws in your picture.

 

[sparky 1971]

Thanks guys. I tested the wires and only one is hot (the black one in the yellow sleeve marked “hot”. The remaining 3, including the black one, have no voltage. I moved the hot one to the left in the pic.

Assuming the single hot is the Line, I just hooked up the hot/black to the line connection. Along with the white neutral to the Line neutral. Then attached the black that had no voltage to the black/hot Load connection. And the white to the white Load connection. Then attached the ground.

Still dead. I think it’s time to have an electrician onsite to check it out.

In the meantime, I did hook up a regular outlet and everything works fine and lights on.

As long as you wired it correctly, and it appears you did, it should work unless the GFCI tripped. I don't know about all brands, but I use P&S devices. With them at least, as soon as they see power the first time, they trip. Did you make sure the reset button was pushed?

 

[Casey69]

I bought an Eaton gfci breaker. It has a springy reset button, but doesn’t really “set” like a typical one. Wonder if a got a bad one?

 

[couch67]

You can try disconnecting the Load wires, then power back on and try resetting the GFCI. If it sets on and you have power at the outlet, then you most likely have a ground fault somewhere in your load wiring / devices. If it doesn't set, then its a bad GFCI.

 

[theoldwizard1]

FYI - On "newer" (2010 ?) GFCI outlets, they can NOT be reset unless there is incoming power.

Saved my neighbor a lot of grief when he tripped both GFCI outlets on his new generator. It had 240V at that plug but nothing on the 120V outlets. He was ready to return it when I checked it out. Start the engine, press the Reset button, GREEN LIGHT !

 

[Casey69]

I actually did that. Disconnected the Load wires and just had the Line and ground connected. Turned the breaker on and still no power. So using that outlet that doesn’t have a GFCI breaker hooked up…does it pose any shock/fire danger? Haven’t plugged anything into it now that it’s just a normal outlet. Just happy to have the lights on for now!

Thinking I might have a bad gfci outlet…

 

[no704]

Is this on a GFCI breaker also?

 

[slimpickins]

Not sure what brand, but a couple fairly recent GFCI outlets that I've purchased have a "springy" reset button and I found that I really had to press the reset button in hard to get it to click, and actually reset. This was on brand new GFCI's. I was thinking of returning them but all of the outlets in the 3-pack were the same.

 

[Casey69]

Resolved. I’ll own up and I don’t think I had it initially wired correctly, between the line and the load. Also, the reset button had to be really pressed in the get it to reset (as Slim indicated in the post above). Just giving people a heads up in case they encounter something similar and find this post helpful. Thanks everyone!