Loose Neutral

[quakerj]

Late yesterday evening wife was complaining about lights flickering in the living room and her carpet cleaning machine was acting funny (she was shampooing carpets). One of those three light circuit testers showed everything to be fine so I sort of ignored it... until later when I went to watch TV none of the living room appliances worked. The surge protector had burned up and let all its smoke out.

I measured voltage at the outlets and was getting 75V on all outlets on that particular circuit and it was clear that the ceiling fan light was much dimmer than it should be. I pulled every receptacle and switch out, plus the ceiling fan to look for loose connections and they're all good. After all that work I went to the panel and discovered this gem:



There's so many wires crowding that area of the neutral/ground bus that I couldn't even see if the connection was loose but it had to be to create that kind of heat. The fix was to cut that neutral wire down to good copper, put a pigtail on it and run it to the other side of the panel whose neutral bus is accessible. Like magic I had working outlets again.

This house was built in 2007, not sure if a loose connection is common but I was less than impressed.

 

[KansasArt]

I have found 2 like that in my panel. Did the same as you. Also went through and made sure the others were tight. Built in mid 70’s.

 

[larry4406]

I felt your pain. My bug eye tester showed hot-ground reversed.

Glad you solved yours.

Hot/Ground Reversed

1987 House that we moved into last year. Came home last night and several light circuits are dead and the garage door opener outlet also was dead. Not sure exactly how this circuit is wired/branched. Plugged a bug eye tester into the garage door opener outlet and it says hot/ground reversed...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[cgrutt]

Glad you caught it before something bad happened. At least it was contained in the panel. Did you check to see if other connections were tight? I've seen that happen on the breaker itself.

 

[Jeepster04]

Parents place was built in 2006. Similar situation, had to replace an outlet due to a loose connection.

 

[nadogail]

Loose or open neutral conductors often present unusual symptoms.

The hot lead is looking for a return and it may not be balanced.

 

[428PI]

On the panel in my shop that I mentioned that the one feed wire started sparking I had a neutral that was like that too. I just tightened the ground screw and all appears ok. I did check all the others while I was at it.