In my older house, I'm checking the receptacles with an electric tester and I've found that several of them have the hot and neutral wires reversed. These are receptacles that my refrigerator, computer, and washer/dryer are plugged into. I'm planning on correcting the wiring, but how serious is this, and what could happen from these reversed receptacles?
2007-03-10 07:35:37 · 0 answers · asked by Jimmy 2 in Home & Garden ➔ Maintenance & Repairs
normally it isn't terribly serious. HOWEVER, it is required for GFI recpticles to operate properly and if reversed, when an item is pluged in, all the neutrals in the house will become electrically "hot" causing potential for a pretty serious electric shock!
Just call an electrician if you get into a confusing situation. Out of all the DIY questions, the electrical ones scare the crap out of me at times because electrical mistakes can potentially kill you or a family member or even burn your house down.
Be safe and use good judgement.
2007-03-11 12:41:13 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
So you got a plug in tester with lights and reading the fault codes. The reversed neutral and hot is easy. Step 1, find the right breaker in your main box and turn off the power to the circuit, step 2 remove the outlet and swap the neutral and hot leads on the outlet. The black wire should be the hot wire and it goes to the thin plug. The neutral should be white and goes to the wider plug. Also the neutral terminals and ground screw are usually on the same side of the outlet. The open neutral can be more difficult. In electric open means disconnected. Check to see if the neutral wire is on the outlet. If it is check to see where it goes, it may be wire nutted to a bunch of other neutral wires. If so check this connection. If all looks good in the box then the neutral is disconnected somewhere in the circuit and finding can be difficult. Easiest place to check is the electric Panel itself. If good there then its opening up boxes on the circuit and checking to make sure the neutrals are connected. The correct wiring one is self explanatory, dont do anything there. Update: for the ground wire follow same as the neutral. The ground wire is the bare one and goes to the green screw at the bottom of the outlet. If the box is a metal box you may see the ground being attached to the box somehow and the ground is transferred to the outlet thur the screws in the outlet going being threaded to the grounded box and pushing against the metal tab on the outlet. I always attach the ground to the outlet unless the guy before me attached the wire to the box and cut it so short you can not wire nut another wire to it.
2016-03-15 22:24:40 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hot And Neutral Wires Reversed
2016-11-06 19:51:06 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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You did not give much information. I am assuming that these are several outlets all on the same circuit. If this Is the case it sounds like you may have a bad ground (neutral) or a short circuit that is erratic. If you disconnect the hot wire from the circuit breaker and then disconnect it from all of the outlets, do the same with the neutrals to those outlets. Check the neutral to ground (conduit), check the neutral to Hot and check the hot to ground (conduit) with a continuity meter. Once you see continuity, you will find which wire is grounding or shorting out. That is one way of doing it. Without knowing more and seeing your setup, that's all I can recommend without having you go out and spend $400.00 on a Green Lee Circuit Tracer. If your not too handy with a test meter and how to isolate the circuits as I have indicated, I would recommend calling an electrician. If you have light gauge wire on a too heavy of a circuit breaker, the wiring could have overheated and melted down inside the conduit and this could be a real mess.
2016-04-08 06:31:58 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The condition could exist where if you physically touch the appliance and a grounded pipe or other metal object you would get a shock, you have a dangerous condition. Reverse the receptacle wires on all the receptacles that you tested wrong.
2007-03-10 08:20:07 · answer #5 · answered by Charles H 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is serious. Any exposed metal parts attached to the neutral, which are supposed to be attached to the neutral, are now attached to the hot side. Electrocution can happen - especially on ungrounded items. Any inductive load appliance - motors, etc... are not only dangerous, they will burn out sooner than they should.
Have this condition repaired as soon as possible.
2007-03-11 09:39:56 · answer #6 · answered by Dave 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you must have some pretty old outlets-- outlets generally have one slot that is longer than the other slot-- this is the neutral slot-- the shorter one is naturally the hot side. From behind the outlet the neutral wire connects to the silver screw and hot to the brass screw. Appliances, etc are also wired this way to maintain proper polarity so fix your outlets
2007-03-10 08:23:03 · answer #7 · answered by shermisme 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
GET THIS FIXED now,, as charles said the potential for a bad or fatal shock is immenent,, not to mention that this could fry your electronic equipment!! even though some things may be working now the reverse polarity could shorten live span of these,
2007-03-10 20:59:52 · answer #8 · answered by fuzzykjun 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not an electrician but if those circuits that are reversed are working then every circuit in your house is always live. Sooner or later the house will burn to the ground. The papers only call this "faulty wiring".
2007-03-10 07:41:29 · answer #9 · answered by St N 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋