# Ground & Neutral is Hot



## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

I'm on another job where I see ceiling and switch boxes that have 120v between ground and neutral. 

I have seen this before and in each instance it was old BX cable whose jacket was hot with the neutral and the switch position mattered not.

Last thing is that owners report nothing apparently odd about their electric system and lived with this condition many years.

My question is whether or not I should worry about this much before changing out fixtures and devices.


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## JamesNLA (Jun 2, 2006)

umm, yeah!!

Someone loaded up the ground, and the ground is not to be energized as that can really make a H/O's day go bad. Mention it and charge them to fix it. I suggest looking at ceiling fans....I have twice seen H/O's use the ground of a 12/2 to get variable fan speed/dimmer. Just think if one actually needed the saftey of the ground.....


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

Ok thanks for the reply. So if I understand you with the ceiling fan......
The HO used the ground wire as the second hot (instead of 12/3) and tied it into the incoming hot line?????
While neither job has ceiling fans--you're saying something similar was done elsewhere??


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## painterman (Feb 5, 2005)

*very dangerous*

I had the exact same situation in my barn.Someone may die over this. FIX IT.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

I'm trying to understand how a ground gets hot to begin with--when if you bridge ground to hot anywhere, you blow a breaker. What am I missing????


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## painterman (Feb 5, 2005)

I'm no sparky and I'm sure the MD could better explain it better than me,but there could be a problem in the panel. Mine was missing a bond between two parts in one of the panels. Under that situation the fuses or breakers will not trip. A short will just "go around in circles" This problem must be repaired or someone may die.


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## kyle (Dec 21, 2006)

you are right, assuming the "hot" ground actually has a path all the way to the panel. If you have this situation you should not assume anything. another thing that could be happening is that the breaker is just not tripping. ever heard of a Federal Pacific? i once held a hot against a junction box with sparks flying for about 15 seconds and it didnt trip anything, nice hole in the box though.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

The panel in both houses is a pushmatic.
The problem is only on some, not all circuits.
The circuits affected have BX cable.
About that barn painterman....my understanding is that there should be no jumper between hot and neutral if it's a subpanel.


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## mickeyco (May 13, 2006)

Capt2 said:


> The panel in both houses is a pushmatic.
> The problem is only on some, not all circuits.
> The circuits affected have BX cable.
> About that barn painterman....my understanding is that there should be no *jumper between hot and neutral* if it's a subpanel.


Never, you mean *jumper between neutral and ground*.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

Mickey, yea ground and neutral. 
OK I still have no clue how you get voltage between these without blowing a fuse or other immediate notice, and it operating this way for many years.


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## DAVIS081404 (Oct 20, 2006)

Cap, where are you measuring a voltage between ground and nuetral. If you have lifted the nuetral and a device is pluged in or a fixture is on you will have 120v bet ground and nuetral. If you draw a simple light circuit you will see that by lifting the nuetral it becomes an extension of the hot leg. If you explain how you got your readings it will help.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

DAVIS081404 said:


> Cap, where are you measuring a voltage between ground and nuetral. If you have lifted the nuetral and a device is pluged in or a fixture is on you will have 120v bet ground and nuetral. If you draw a simple light circuit you will see that by lifting the nuetral it becomes an extension of the hot leg. If you explain how you got your readings it will help.


I'm not understanding what you mean by "lifting the neutral," I get the reading with everything connected but here is the scenario.

I take a single gang switch box that I make into a double for more lights. I took the hot leg off the existing switch and pig tail it to a second switch. I connect the neutral to the nut with the other neutrals. I see 120 volts between hot and the neutrals nutted at the can. But the problem starts at the switch box--I am reading 120v between the neutrals that are nutted there, and the metal box, which only gets its continuity via the metal jacket of the BX cable.

The new can light works fine, but at the can and the box I still get 120v between hot and neutral, hot and ground, and ground and neutral.


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## karma_carpentry (Aug 7, 2005)

What kind of device did you use to 'see' 120VAC? Was it a digital or analog multimeter or a neon?

I'm thinking it could be a phantom voltage. I've seen it before on an old line with BX - but I saw 55 VAC on a cheapo analog multimeter, not 120. Somehow the voltage got split in half in the inductance is what I theorized.

You could read this thread for more tips on that, including MD's tip to drop a light bulb in a pigtail across the alleged 120V potential and see if it lights or not. If not, then it's a phantom potential caused by inductance, prob'ly only a few mA.

I might just be blowing smoke. I'm not an electrician.
Merry Christmas.


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## karma_carpentry (Aug 7, 2005)

By the way, if that light bulb lights up, then you've got a real serious problem on your hands and you'd better to shut off that circuit until it's fixed. I guess you know that. But anyway an electrician should check it out.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

karma_carpentry said:


> What kind of device did you use to 'see' 120VAC? Was it a digital or analog multimeter or a neon?
> 
> I'm thinking it could be a phantom voltage. I've seen it before on an old line with BX - but I saw 55 VAC on a cheapo analog multimeter, not 120.
> MD's tip to drop a light bulb in a pigtail across the alleged 120V potential and see if it lights or not. If not, then it's a phantom potential caused by inductance, prob'ly only a few mA.
> ...


I'm using an analog multimeter--120v.
I see the phantom voltages elsewhere--50 or so volts.
The light bulb across the neutral and the metal box lights the bulb brightly.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

karma_carpentry said:


> By the way, if that light bulb lights up, then you've got a real serious problem on your hands and you'd better to shut off that circuit until it's fixed. I guess you know that. But anyway an electrician should check it out.


Yes it lights and IT'S been like this for many years with thus far no noticeable issues.


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## painterman (Feb 5, 2005)

*Fix This*

Again I'm no sparky, but if the house is not grounded properly and there is a short to ground somewhere, because of the poor or incorrect ground a fuse or breaker will not trip. this could give you a hot neutral.I can not stress enough to you how important it is to find the problem and fix it.


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## acrwc10 (Dec 10, 2006)

painterman Is very right. This needs to have an electrician look at the problem and fix it. I would guess the problem is in the ground 'or lack there of' Just because there is metal jacket on the BX does not mean it is connected to the grounding. Obviously, or this would not be happening. It will be well worth the money.


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## Capt2 (Jul 29, 2006)

*Fixed*

It's fixed.
Some of you will joke about this but I took a break after much frustrated thinking, and picked up a book on guided intuition.

After reading the first few pages I was spontaneously guided to do the following: 

--remove a 3 wire BX cable from its nuts.(no idea why I didn't question)
--take the remaining nuts apart put all the other whites together, and all the blacks together. (they were originally soldered, plus I had previously not seen the wire color because the cable was old and ratty.)
It was obvious that polarity was reversed and hot nutted to neutral.

After that only one switch worked and I was further "led" to do other things to fix that. (ratty original neutral running through a switch also)

Done, and one more house to fix with this problem. Sometimes you can think so hard that you miss the solution--glad I had that book.


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## painterman (Feb 5, 2005)

Are you sure that you have a good ground in this house?" Wires soldered together" WTF is that all about. Something fishy here


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