wireing? i have a cieling light that has 2 wires.they are both black?

Question

so how do i know which one is hot and which is ground?

Answer 1

use a meter and touch lone end to one of the black wires and the other to the metal box or conduit. If that is hot, you will get a reading on your meter. Repeat with the other line. If both are hot then you have a 208 or 220 2 wire circuit.

Answer 2

the first few ans are correct Bill, an inexpensive meter reader will tell you if its 115volts, if so, the colors of the wire are still wire under the coating and someone has just jumped from another junction box with the same color off the common.
try taking a pigtail lite socket and touch it to the ends, if the lite goes on, your ok, reverse the pigtail and if it still goes on, you're still ok and its just a common light wiring box.
If you get a higher reading with the meter or the lite blows out, you do have 115 or crossed wires.
common and hots can be reversed and cause no problem with lites. all others are specialty liting or other uses.
hot wires (red or black) come from the pole and return to the pole and are called commons or white. electricity is a merrygoround and returns to its point of beginning, interrupted by a wall switch and grounded at the breaker box by the garage usually.
If you have questions and want hands on communication, go to a home depot or a friend that has electrical experience nce and they can show you in real time.

Answer 3

The best way is with a volt ohm meter. Truth is for most situations, one should be white and one black. White is neutral, or output side, black is the input side. FYI lights are not polarity sensitive, not real hot ground as in DC. If it was black and black, when you took it apart, it should work again.
In some cases in a house black and black can both be input power and when used together they become 220 volts. If your light turns on really bright and burns out quick, this is the case.
Be careful, this stuff is more dangerous than most people think.

Answer 4

Use a test socket, touching one lead to one wire and the other to the box, and test the other wire as well. The wire that causes the bulb to light is hot. The person who originally wired the box did not follow code. The switch is controlling the neutral.

Answer 5

With a regular incandescent light the polarity doesn't really matter. The bulb will burn no different. But not sure about compact fluorescent bulbs. If in doubt you can purchase a electrical tweeter for pocket change. It tweets or lights up when near a wire with a charge.

Answer 6

Perhaps the light has 3-way switch and electrician use the one black wire as neutral . By Light tester you can find out which one is hot .

Answer 7

the place is that guy who's a real electrician and not an impostor once you prefer him the main? in case you do no longer prefer to kiss your derriere good via then do no longer pay interest to the responses on your question. the two black wires mutually are your feeds. certainly one of them is alive and the different one whilst twisted mutually will become alive and now feeds the swap (brass screw) interior the field. the different black is hooked as much as the different screw and to the sunshine. you need to have a pair of white wires in there twisted mutually. Your new mild has a black and a white cord. Hook the lonely black to the black and white to white

Answer 8

how old is the wireing? alot of times the older wireing seem to have two black wires, but you neet to peel some of the outer insulation off to reveal the right color

Answer 9

just put one to a black wire and the other to the white wire comming from the celing,
it don,t make a diffrence to the light,

Answer 10

borrow a multimeter