As a woman who learns by visual explanation. This video was very thorough and informative. And thank you for creating all scenarios presented on the tester.
Ricky, you did an excellent job of teaching how to use and interpret the receptacle outlet tester. Your explanations were clear, simple and made good sense. I hope you are teaching electrician apprentices because you know your stuff!
I went thru 6 videos and this one by far, is the *MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND!!!* Thank you sir! Now, I need to find a way to download this video in case it ever gets removed.
Nicely done! One extra note about the GFCI test button: many older homes (wired before grounding was required) have been "upgraded" with GFCI on circuits without any ground, so they could legally plug in a three-prong (grounding) plug. NEC 406.4(D)(2). The tester in the receptacles will show "open ground" and the TEST button on the GFCI itself will work. However, the button on the plug-in tester will not trip the GFCI because the plug-in tester needs a "ground" connection to which it runs a test current for triggeriung the GFCI. Without a ground, no "leakage" to ground and no GFCI trigger, even though the GFCI itself is working just fine and provides ground-fault protection for other receptacles wired to the 'load' terminals of the GFCI.
Very good advice. For those who may already live in or are considering purchasing a home built before about 1962 , the year the nema 5-15 aka three prong outlets were required in all homes replacing the previously legal to install nema 1-15 receptacles aka two prong outlets, you are not allowed to replace the original outlet with a three slot outlet if no means of grounding exists. However, you may install a GFCI outlet provided you label it no equipment ground. You may also then use three slot outlets downstream of the GFCI, providing they are labeled "GFCI protected, No Equipment Ground " the reason being is because a perfect example is the surge protector protecting your newly purchased 4K 70 inch flatscreen, requires a true ground to take that surge away from the equipment. It will however protect a person from being electrocuted by a faulty lamp or appliance plugged into that circuit because it senses any difference between the current going into the hot and returning on the neutral , less current returning means some current may be flowing where it shouldn't like a person. Thats why code allows this, even though it is not quite as good as a true ground, it is still much safer than the old two slot outlets. Hope this helps
So the test button on the outlet tester works differently than the test button on the GFCI itself? Because the GCFI will trip when it's test button is pressed even without a ground!
@@Jnglfvr Yes, because the test button in the outlet has an access to the internals of the GFCI it diverts current from the live to neutral bypassing the GFCI on the other side. The external tester has no such access so it can divert current only to the ground and this does not work when the ground is not connected. Note one should not do any tricks to make the tester not show open ground. The label "No equipment ground" is there just to show that open ground is not an error.
The only condition this type of tester won't show is the non-code / very dangerous use of a boot leg ground. This is when a jumper is used to tie the neutral to the ground terminal. Its specifically used to fool these testers and home inspectors. The only way to indicate this is to use a blade tester around the ground hole (it will go off since its energized) or actually opening the box and looking for it. The big give away is if there a lot of two prong outlets in the house but a couple of three prongs that are testing as grounded.
Completely understood everything he said, including the "mashing of the button" because my wife uses that very same kind of talk. LOL She is from North Carolina, and I Love her to Pieces!
What a great video man. Thank you soooooooo much. Great explanation and the visuals are more than I can ask for. Thank you good sir. I hope your making more videos. Definitely a thumbs up from me.
Ht ground reverse is likely an open neutral. You should make sure that everything is unplugged in the circuit and test again. It cannot happen accidentally (by wires getting loose) and it is highly unlikely that anyone would miswire so badly. You should test it with a non-contact voltage tester. It it show voltage n the ground that is serious. The tester can only tell the differences. If neutral is open an an appliance is connected and on the neutral gets hot through the appliance. If both neutral and hot are hot but the ground is not the tester shows same as if the ground was hot and the others were not. A non-contact voltage tester is better in that it has the access to the true ground through the user. Yu should use it in addition.
Thank you so much you helped me alot! How do I know if the ground is truly grounded im going to try a grounding pad i want to make sure the ground is working. Is it the first example you gave? Very informative thank you again!
At 12:05 and 12:37 in the video you are holding a metal box while pressing the trip button on the tester. This is very dangerous because the trip button connects hot to ground. And you are touching ground. If that box was connected to the outlets ground but not connected to earth’s ground you could have been shocked. In general it’s best to NOT touch metal or ground while pressing the test button just to keep safe. Keep in mind that the test button on the gfci outlet does not have this safety risk because it just connects hot on the load side to neutral on the line side. Meaning it doesn’t utilize the ground.
The center light on my Klein 210 outlet tester is reading dim the right side light is bright. 6 outlets work fine the 6 dim center right bright outlets don't work?
I have 5 outlets in my room .. 1 works correct which is the A/C outlet. But the other 4 all give me hot ground reverse . All 4 outlets are reversed wrong?
Have an electrician check the first and second outlets. Make sure that the black wires are landed on the gold screws and the white wires are landed on the silver screws. You may have a bad outlet among the 5 outlets. Try unplugging your AC unit and then test all 5 outlets again. The problem can be caused by your AC unit. Thank you for watching.
Your tester may be bad. You should try another gfci tester. Also when you test a 120v circuit, you should always read between 117 volts and 120 volts. If you are getting 96 volts you may have a loose connection some where. Check all of your connections leading to or coming from the outlet: make sure that wire nuts are twisted good , make sure that at every terminations that the wire is making good contact with the outlet. . Also you may have some bad outlets. THANKS FOR WATCHING.
My tester don’t read no lights at all , and it s working good in other outlet s but I have 2 outlets not working and the reading is not light at all , what should I check
I have that orange one from Harbor Freight ( Ames GST-125 ) Plugged in to a working nonGFI outlet it only show the center light lit, which is undefined on the chart. All other outlet test good / normal = two yellow lights on light are lit. Anyone know what that means ?
My former uncle (divorced) wired the house around 1965ish. I just put the tester in and found that the hot and neutral are reversed. So far, every receptacle I've tested is that way. Should I change them all?
I want to change out my older two prong plugs to newer three prong. If the tester shows both amber lights on(I've attached a three prong adapter) should I assume that the box is grounded? I think I have older wiring, but someone since 1941 grounded the system (make sense?). Do I simply attached a bare copper wire from green screw on new plug to box with tapping screw, or do something else to make sure we're grounded? If a two pronger with three prong attachment plug does not show two ambers, do I call electrician? We do have CGCI plugs that do trip on testing (oops, one doesn't!). Basically I'm trying to see if the other youtube videos that show changing out two to three prong with help of copper wire and tapping screw will kill me!
If you are changing out your 2 prong outlets for 3 prongs, this is OK. You may not have a ground wire in the box and your tester will only show one amber light on, however this is OK. Your outlet will still work without a ground. Running a bare copper wire from the ground screw on the outlet to the metal box still will not ground the outlet if the box is not grounded. To truly ground the outlet you will have to run new wire ( the romex will a black, white, and bare copper in it). This can be very expensive. I suggest that you install the 3 prongs and let them be without a ground, unless you are selling the house and you have to bring it up to code. If you are selling the house call an electrician. If you are going to live in the house just install the 3 prongs and let them be not grounded.
To change out your 2 prongs to 3 prongs, first turn off the circuit for the outlets. Then remove the 2 prong. When installing the 3 prongs the black wire go to the gold screw, the white wire go to the silver screw and if there is a bare copper or green wire, it goes to the green screw on the outlet.
My tester reads correct, but when I plug something in it reads hot/ground rev. Half of the line works properly have dont. Plugs lights ect.. sometimes the power works but not for long.. I do live in a mobile home,and have had trouble with birds nesting in the roof.. What would you recommend?
One thing that may be the problem is the outlet you are plugging into may be bad I recommend changing out the outlet. Another problem it may be is, you may have an appliance plugged in to the circuit, and this specific appliance maybe be causing the outlet tester to read hot ground reverse. If the hot ground reverse is in an appliance, don't worry. There is nothing wrong with your outlets.
This sounds like a variation of open neutral, with load turned on downstream. But it sounds like in your case the neutral is so poorly connected somewhere in that circuit that whenever a load is placed on the voltage drop on the neutral is so great due to the high resistance connection that it acts like am open neutral and the appliances don't work. I would check all connections in outlets, switches, and junction boxes. Extremely rare that the open or high resistance connection would be in the cable itself running between boxes. Almost always happens at connections, and the more connections you have in a given circuit, the more chances for issues. As one senior electrician used to tell me, each connection is the equivalent of adding another link to a chain, a chain is only as stong as its weakest link. Or if you are not comfortable checking this yourself, hire an electrician or someone who is qualified. Hope this helps.
An actual hot / ground reverse would be extremely dangerous and very rarely ever occur. Appliances plugged into that outlet will not operate, and the metal casing of a three prong grounded lamp or appliance would have the case sitting at 120 volts to ground, a potentially fatal situation. Usually a variation of open neutral.
I will b6ut one of these tomorrow I live in a old house and checked it's not connected to a green wire but it's in a metal box and there's a lil tiny box that looks like that might be grounded.
The tester man be bad. Try another tester. If the tester is not bad, the problem may be in the GFCI. There may be a loose connection in the GFCI. Tighten down all the screws on the GFCI. I do apologize for taking so long to get back to you.
It sounds like a loose connection. The black wire my not be making good contact with the gold screw .It also can be a bad outlet. Turn off the circuit and install a new outlet. This may fix the problem.
@@rickyjewett6082 i did that first. It is reading open hot on tester but there is power when i test it with my meter. i wanted to know if the breaker could be bad?
@@keithstrickland8072 Keith there is a chance that you have a bad receptacle outlet tester. If you get 120volts when you test with a voltage tester or a multimeter, than the outlet is good and work properly. Your receptacle outlet tester may be bad.
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As a woman who learns by visual explanation. This video was very thorough and informative. And thank you for creating all scenarios presented on the tester.
You are so welcome.
you did a great job explaining this, i liked how you included the outlet sample showing how the screws might be loose, thanks.
Good video. Much better to see your visual examples than someone telling you what is what
Very thorough and very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to set up the faulty outlets and explain each possible failure mode!
Ricky, you did an excellent job of teaching how to use and interpret the receptacle outlet tester. Your explanations were clear, simple and made good sense. I hope you are teaching electrician apprentices because you know your stuff!
Thank you very much.
I went thru 6 videos and this one by far, is the *MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND!!!* Thank you sir! Now, I need to find a way to download this video in case it ever gets removed.
Awesome
best video explaining the diagnostics thoroughly. And a little cute nice accent. Like this video.
Thank you for watching. The accent is southern. I am from Alabama.
My roof was leaking above it maybe it's corroded unless the almighty electric company botched something up. You explain things in the greatest way. Ty
This was surprisingly enlightening. Thank you for the great explanation!
Thank you very much. With your help I solved my outlet and light problem.
Thank you for making this video! Excellent explanations for those of us challenged on anything electrical!
This guy knows exactly what he's doing and likes doing it. Love the video set up.
Este video me ayudo mucho,gracias.This video helped me a lot thank you.
Excellent Video & Example of faults !
Sir great job of breaking down.
Very well explained through each situation. This helped me figure my problem out. Thank you!
Best example published!!!! Thank you for your efforts brother
Thank you! Best video I’ve seen
Nicely done! One extra note about the GFCI test button: many older homes (wired before grounding was required) have been "upgraded" with GFCI on circuits without any ground, so they could legally plug in a three-prong (grounding) plug. NEC 406.4(D)(2). The tester in the receptacles will show "open ground" and the TEST button on the GFCI itself will work. However, the button on the plug-in tester will not trip the GFCI because the plug-in tester needs a "ground" connection to which it runs a test current for triggeriung the GFCI. Without a ground, no "leakage" to ground and no GFCI trigger, even though the GFCI itself is working just fine and provides ground-fault protection for other receptacles wired to the 'load' terminals of the GFCI.
Thank you for that information. Iron sharpens iron.
Very good advice. For those who may already live in or are considering purchasing a home built before about 1962 , the year the nema 5-15 aka three prong outlets were required in all homes replacing the previously legal to install nema 1-15 receptacles aka two prong outlets, you are not allowed to replace the original outlet with a three slot outlet if no means of grounding exists. However, you may install a GFCI outlet provided you label it no equipment ground. You may also then use three slot outlets downstream of the GFCI, providing they are labeled "GFCI protected, No Equipment Ground " the reason being is because a perfect example is the surge protector protecting your newly purchased 4K 70 inch flatscreen, requires a true ground to take that surge away from the equipment. It will however protect a person from being electrocuted by a faulty lamp or appliance plugged into that circuit because it senses any difference between the current going into the hot and returning on the neutral , less current returning means some current may be flowing where it shouldn't like a person. Thats why code allows this, even though it is not quite as good as a true ground, it is still much safer than the old two slot outlets. Hope this helps
So the test button on the outlet tester works differently than the test button on the GFCI itself? Because the GCFI will trip when it's test button is pressed even without a ground!
@@Jnglfvr Yes, because the test button in the outlet has an access to the internals of the GFCI it diverts current from the live to neutral bypassing the GFCI on the other side. The external tester has no such access so it can divert current only to the ground and this does not work when the ground is not connected.
Note one should not do any tricks to make the tester not show open ground. The label "No equipment ground" is there just to show that open ground is not an error.
Man thank you im trynna learn so i can do things myself and i just wasnt sure what all this meant even havin the tool I appreciate it man helpin alot
Very helpful video! Thank you!
This video is very informative and good explanation for an amateur DIYer like myself. Thank you.
Thank you for watching.
Best of the best explanation as how to test outlets. Thanks
You do a great job of explaining, this should help those who may not be comfortable when trying to troubleshoot a problem circuit.
Thank you very much.
very good video mi frend hallo from mexico
Perfect instructions
Thank you.
Awesome job Sir wish you ran RUclips for real
Thank you for your help. I appreciate you.
Very well illustrated ! Learn a lot. Thank's Mr.G
I like your video thanks 👍
Very useful & informative video! Thank you!
Very well explained
Well done, Mr. Jewett! I will refer to this video while future troubleshooting.
Very well explained thanks
Thank you very much
Best info
Have a blessing day
Felipe El Paso tx
Thank YOU very much for education presentation . Cheers mate !
I have the same tester and am so impressed with the operation visual examples.Thanks.
Thank you for the step by step instructions, very well done.
Thank you sir!
You are welcome.
Awesome video for explaining a tester. I thought about doing this for training inspector. I will be using this video.
OK. Thanks for your support.
The only condition this type of tester won't show is the non-code / very dangerous use of a boot leg ground. This is when a jumper is used to tie the neutral to the ground terminal. Its specifically used to fool these testers and home inspectors. The only way to indicate this is to use a blade tester around the ground hole (it will go off since its energized) or actually opening the box and looking for it. The big give away is if there a lot of two prong outlets in the house but a couple of three prongs that are testing as grounded.
Specifically it does not tell reverse bootleg ground which is extremely dangerous and can kill. It energizes any case of a grounded device.
Really great stuff here. Explained very well!
Great video. Thanks for your teachings.
Excellent video with great information well illustrated. Thanks
Great video with much valuable info. Thank you for your explanations on this imp subject.
Thank you! Great 👍 video
Well prepared and informative great video
Very helpful. Thank you, sir!
Many thanks for your help
This is excellent information, well details. Thank You!
Thank you very much! Very helpful explanation!
Great video. Very informative. Thanks!
Thank you Rick, two thumbs up. 👍👍
you should make a video of all to fix all them. :) great work. saw this video 5x already.
Great instructions and very informative video, I thank you!!!!
Excellent video!
Great video! Plus, "mashing" the button...LOL. Took me a while to figure that out! Thanks!
Completely understood everything he said, including the "mashing of the button" because my wife uses that very same kind of talk. LOL She is from North Carolina, and I Love her to Pieces!
I learned a lot Rick thank you very much.. keep. Adding new videos
Great job. I learned so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch.
Awsome video thank you
Excellent video.
Nicely done
What a great video man. Thank you soooooooo much. Great explanation and the visuals are more than I can ask for. Thank you good sir. I hope your making more videos. Definitely a thumbs up from me.
Wow great 👍🏻 video thanks 🙏🏼 for putting the effort in teaching .
Very helpful. Thank you!
Awesome video, thanks!!!
Ht ground reverse is likely an open neutral. You should make sure that everything is unplugged in the circuit and test again. It cannot happen accidentally (by wires getting loose) and it is highly unlikely that anyone would miswire so badly. You should test it with a non-contact voltage tester. It it show voltage n the ground that is serious.
The tester can only tell the differences. If neutral is open an an appliance is connected and on the neutral gets hot through the appliance. If both neutral and hot are hot but the ground is not the tester shows same as if the ground was hot and the others were not.
A non-contact voltage tester is better in that it has the access to the true ground through the user. Yu should use it in addition.
Thank you for that information. It's very useful.
Very informative video! Thanks so much for the information.
Thank you for watching.
Outstanding video. Nicely explained. 👍
Thank you for watching.
Great breakdown. Thank you.
You are welcome. Thanks for watching.
Great job! Thanks!
Seriously awesome video man! Just learned a ton.
Good Job, young man.
Great job...great explanation...thnks...
I have this outlet tester it's 120v I want it to work on 250v what should I do or what to change to make it work with 250v
Dude, great video! Much appreciated. : )
Thank you!!
Thank you!
Great video, thank you! *I'm gonna let it slide that you didn't make that center screw as perfectly aligned as the other two. Hurts me!*
Thanks for watching.
Most helpful thanks. You think you can do a video with the new klein tools rt250?
Good job man, thanks
Thank you for watching.
THANKS
Thank you so much you helped me alot! How do I know if the ground is truly grounded im going to try a grounding pad i want to make sure the ground is working. Is it the first example you gave? Very informative thank you again!
At 12:05 and 12:37 in the video you are holding a metal box while pressing the trip button on the tester. This is very dangerous because the trip button connects hot to ground. And you are touching ground. If that box was connected to the outlets ground but not connected to earth’s ground you could have been shocked.
In general it’s best to NOT touch metal or ground while pressing the test button just to keep safe.
Keep in mind that the test button on the gfci outlet does not have this safety risk because it just connects hot on the load side to neutral on the line side. Meaning it doesn’t utilize the ground.
Awesome
The center light on my Klein 210 outlet tester is reading dim the right side light is bright. 6 outlets work fine the 6 dim center right bright outlets don't work?
I have 5 outlets in my room .. 1 works correct which is the A/C outlet. But the other 4 all give me hot ground reverse . All 4 outlets are reversed wrong?
Have an electrician check the first and second outlets. Make sure that the black wires are landed on the gold screws and the white wires are landed on the silver screws. You may have a bad outlet among the 5 outlets. Try unplugging your AC unit and then test all 5 outlets again. The problem can be caused by your AC unit. Thank you for watching.
On other correctly wired outlets one yellow indicator is bright and the other yellow indicator is dim,what is the problem ?
gfci tester sometimes it shows hot and ground reversed, some other times all of the 3 gfci tester lights on, check voltage it reads less than 96v
Your tester may be bad. You should try another gfci tester. Also when you test a 120v circuit, you should always read between 117 volts and 120 volts. If you are getting 96 volts you may have a loose connection some where. Check all of your connections leading to or coming from the outlet: make sure that wire nuts are twisted good , make sure that at every terminations that the wire is making good contact with the outlet. . Also you may have some bad outlets. THANKS FOR WATCHING.
I was wondering what would happen if you used that gfci button on a normal outlet that’s not gfci protected
Basically nothing will happen
The tester will not effect the outlet.
My tester don’t read no lights at all , and it s working good in other outlet s but I have 2 outlets not working and the reading is not light at all , what should I check
I have that orange one from Harbor Freight ( Ames GST-125 )
Plugged in to a working nonGFI outlet it only show the center light lit, which is undefined on the chart.
All other outlet test good / normal = two yellow lights on light are lit.
Anyone know what that means ?
My former uncle (divorced) wired the house around 1965ish. I just put the tester in and found that the hot and neutral are reversed. So far, every receptacle I've tested is that way. Should I change them all?
I want to change out my older two prong plugs to newer three prong. If the tester shows both amber lights on(I've attached a three prong adapter) should I assume that the box is grounded? I think I have older wiring, but someone since 1941 grounded the system (make sense?). Do I simply attached a bare copper wire from green screw on new plug to box with tapping screw, or do something else to make sure we're grounded? If a two pronger with three prong attachment plug does not show two ambers, do I call electrician? We do have CGCI plugs that do trip on testing (oops, one doesn't!). Basically I'm trying to see if the other youtube videos that show changing out two to three prong with help of copper wire and tapping screw will kill me!
If you are changing out your 2 prong outlets for 3 prongs, this is OK. You may not have a ground wire in the box and your tester will only show one amber light on, however this is OK. Your outlet will still work without a ground. Running a bare copper wire from the ground screw on the outlet to the metal box still will not ground the outlet if the box is not grounded. To truly ground the outlet you will have to run new wire ( the romex will a black, white, and bare copper in it). This can be very expensive. I suggest that you install the 3 prongs and let them be without a ground, unless you are selling the house and you have to bring it up to code. If you are selling the house call an electrician. If you are going to live in the house just install the 3 prongs and let them be not grounded.
Ricky Jewett thanks Rick!
To change out your 2 prongs to 3 prongs, first turn off the circuit for the outlets. Then remove the 2 prong. When installing the 3 prongs the black wire go to the gold screw, the white wire go to the silver screw and if there is a bare copper or green wire, it goes to the green screw on the outlet.
Got it. Thanks
Great Job,Billy Ray Valentine.🤪
My tester reads correct, but when I plug something in it reads hot/ground rev. Half of the line works properly have dont. Plugs lights ect.. sometimes the power works but not for long.. I do live in a mobile home,and have had trouble with birds nesting in the roof..
What would you recommend?
One thing that may be the problem is the outlet you are plugging into may be bad
I recommend changing out the outlet.
Another problem it may be is, you may have an appliance plugged in to the circuit, and this specific appliance maybe be causing the outlet tester to read hot ground reverse. If the hot ground reverse is in an appliance, don't worry. There is nothing wrong with your outlets.
Please follow up with me and let me know how it turns out. Thanks so much for watching.
This sounds like a variation of open neutral, with load turned on downstream. But it sounds like in your case the neutral is so poorly connected somewhere in that circuit that whenever a load is placed on the voltage drop on the neutral is so great due to the high resistance connection that it acts like am open neutral and the appliances don't work. I would check all connections in outlets, switches, and junction boxes. Extremely rare that the open or high resistance connection would be in the cable itself running between boxes. Almost always happens at connections, and the more connections you have in a given circuit, the more chances for issues. As one senior electrician used to tell me, each connection is the equivalent of adding another link to a chain, a chain is only as stong as its weakest link. Or if you are not comfortable checking this yourself, hire an electrician or someone who is qualified. Hope this helps.
An actual hot / ground reverse would be extremely dangerous and very rarely ever occur. Appliances plugged into that outlet will not operate, and the metal casing of a three prong grounded lamp or appliance would have the case sitting at 120 volts to ground, a potentially fatal situation. Usually a variation of open neutral.
I will b6ut one of these tomorrow I live in a old house and checked it's not connected to a green wire but it's in a metal box and there's a lil tiny box that looks like that might be grounded.
I have a GFCI that when I use the tester one of the yellow light is solid but the other one is not as bright and blinking... Why is that?
The tester man be bad. Try another tester. If the tester is not bad, the problem may be in the GFCI. There may be a loose connection in the GFCI. Tighten down all the screws on the GFCI. I do apologize for taking so long to get back to you.
@@rickyjewett6082 is there a way to test a tester to see if it’s working properly?
i have an open hot,,,,but the outlet is getting power but not working...
what can cause an open hot,,,,,but the outlet is getting power?
It sounds like a loose connection. The black wire my not be making good contact with the gold screw .It also can be a bad outlet. Turn off the circuit and install a new outlet. This may fix the problem.
@@rickyjewett6082 i did that first. It is reading open hot on tester but there is power when i test it with my meter. i wanted to know if the breaker could be bad?
@@keithstrickland8072 Keith there is a chance that you have a bad receptacle outlet tester. If you get 120volts when you test with a voltage tester or a multimeter, than the outlet is good and work properly. Your receptacle outlet tester may be bad.
@@rickyjewett6082 i am not getting 120 volts but i am getting power when i test with meter. when i turn off breaker then there is no power.
Harbor Freight sells very similar Ames brand gfci outlet tester for 5.99
OK. Thanks for letting me know.