Hot-ground reverse / bulbs burning out?

Question

Just bought 50 Yr old house. Over door, outside outlet & 2 driveway lamps on circuit. Outside outlet was falling apart so I replaced with GFCI outlet. Test GFCI would not trip and no power through outlet though voltage was there. Over door & 2 driveway lamps worked fine. Replaced GFCI with another, same result. Replaced with regular outlet, test result was reverse hot/ground, which I am certain it is not. A few days later, bulb burned out in one of the driveway lamps. Replaced the bulb and within 2 days that buurned out. Removed regular outlet with GFCI. Still no power through it but driveway bulb has stopped burning out.

Answer 1

Somewhere along the circuit someone has reversed the wires, or a short occoured and damaged the wires. To check you will need to turn that circuit off to determine what all is on with it, and start at the closest point to the panel, take apart the wires, turn circuit back on, test for correct polarity, put back on outlet, and move to the next outlet. Long, tedious, but it will work. It will let you know if it is just a bad connection(you will see it when investigating) or between which devices the fault lies. Then the hard part, replacing that section of wire. Find the fault first, then We will figure out how to replace the section of wire. You know, baby steps! Don't want to overwhelm you. If you call in an electrician for this it could get expensive because there is no set price for that type of repair, so you are looking at per hour labor charges just to find the fault!!


DSM- There absolutely CAN be voltage in the lines, but no power in the receptacle! They stated that they replaced the GFCI, all new GFCI receptacles are required by code that they have a mis-wire lock feature. If it is improperly wired it will NOT reset, i.e. no power!

Answer 2

Lots of information, that will help us to help you. 50 years old is not really very old for house wiring. There have been some improvements in safety, but the basics are the same.

First, reversing the hot and neutral will have absolutly no effect on the longevity of regular bulbs, none. It is less safe, however. That is not a factor for the bulb issue.

You state that you know for sure that the hot and ground are not reversed. How do you know that? What wires do you have and what are the voltages between each?

You state that there was no power though the outlet, althought there was voltage. That is not possible, you either measured wrong or stated it wrong or something similar. How do you know there is voltage? What were the voltages between each set of wires?

The voltage is supposed to be between hot and neutral, not hot and ground. That is sometimes hard to understand because ground and neutral are connected together in the box. There is voltage between hot and ground because of that, but it is a bad idea to use that voltage.

Instead, you use the power between hot and neutral. The ground is to be kept at ground level, i.e. the ground pin in the outlet and the box that the outlet is in.

Is there really a separate ground wire here or are you referring to the white neutral wire?

This is a potential danger, especially since it is outside. It is required to have GFCI on the outside. It is also a good idea because it saves lives.

Also, there is nothing in a GFCI outlet that could have any effect on bulb life in the bulbs that are further down the stream.

If you post those voltages, we can help you a lot more.

P.S. Chris stated that GFCI breakers will not reset if they are wired backwards. Newer ones have that protection, but older ones do not. Chris has a good point there, thank you.

When I read the words that said there is voltage THROUGH the outlet, I assumed that was 100% accurate. My request for more information from the question's poster was partly to verify that assumption was correct. Through and to are quite different.

Answer 3

if you don't get voltage between the hot and neutral but do between hot and ground then you have a open neutral .if there is no marking on the two wires then take one of them and put a meter beteenthe wire and any ground if u get 110 volts then u know its the hot wire the other is neutral.