Hot/ground reversed

[ezriderga]

I'm asking for help from the electrical pros in the GJ forum. All the receptacles on one circuit just quit working. The overhead light/fan is on the same circuit but still works.

I checked the receptacles using my GB tester and it indicated (by the amber and red light lighting up when I plugged it in) that the hot/grd are reversed. In layman's terms, what does this mean and what do I need to do to correct it.

I did check the voltage with my Fluke meter and it read 128 volts. TIA for help you can give to get this situation resolved. The house is 10 years old and we have not had this problem before.

 

[mrb]

those testers are not 100% definitive in their results as phantom voltage (for lack of a better term) can make the neon lamps glow. Sounds like you lost the neutral on the circuit. I would pull each receptacle out (with the circuit off) and i bet you find a backstabbed receptacle with a loose wire and/or partially melted back, or a loose wirenut.

this is unless something more serious is going on for example you have a short circuit and open ground.....

 

[z28dad]

Are these receptacles gfci protected? If so you may just need a reset.

 

[Submarine_Sailor]

A little word of advice, if it is indeed a GFCI, and you think you've reset it, it is very possible you have not, depending on how your house is wired. My outdoor GFCI's are controlled/reset from the one in my master bath, so when one tripped after I moved in, I reset the garage one, and couldn't figure out WTF was going on. Took me till the next morning when my wife went to blow dry her hair to realize the master bath had lost power too....

 

[ezriderga]

Thanks for your input.

The wife looked outside this morning and asked if I had turned off the fountain. I said no and then realized that is on the outside wall of the master BR where the bad circuit is.

It is GFCI and I tried to reset it. It will not reset so I'm off to the electrical supply house to get a new one. I'm thinking replacing that GFCI will correct the problem. Does that sound to you like the bad GFCI is the problem?

I will report back when I'm finished.

 

[Stuart in MN]

It isn't necessarily a bad GFCI - If there is an unresolved ground fault condition somewhere downstream of the GFCI, it's not going to reset. Since you mentioned there's an outside fountain plugged in to the same circuit, unplug it first and see if the GFCI will reset. A ground fault could be anywhere in the circuit, but a fountain is a likely suspect (since there is lots of water and it's outdoors in the weather.)

For that matter, you should temporarily unplug everything on that circuit and see if that makes a difference.

 

[vhol5]

X2 on unplugging everything on that circuit. Then try to reset the gfci.

 

[I void warranties]

MAKE SURE if you do replace that gfci that you wire it correctly, note that loads should be properly wired to your gfci.

 

[ezriderga]

Thanks for more help. I did go ahead and replace the GFCI (it was an upgrade anyway) and still had the problem. Thanks for the reminder on correctly wiring the GFCI. It just so happened this one was at the end of the circuit.

Next I went to the ceiling fan/light where I thought the receptacles would be fed from (remember from my original post the fan/light was working). Once I got the fan down and looked at the wiring, I found the problem. Whoever wired this initially stripped a little of the insulation off of the neutral and then wrapped two more whites around that one, attempted to twist them together, and then taped them together.

I stripped all the ends twisted them together along with a pigtail and used a wirenut. I wired everything else back up and the fan works fine as well as all the receptacles. I hate having to redo a job someone half fast did the first time, don't you?