Hot Ground Reverse on Outlet Tester Troubleshooting
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2024
- Your outlet tester is probably wrong. Electrical troubleshooting when a hot/grd reverse is displayed on your three light outlet tester.
I could have edited this video to go straight to the problem and fix but wanted to make a good video on troubleshooting in the field. Lots of mistakes were made in this video but I hope that you can learn from them if you find yourself in a similar situation when troubleshooting outlets. 
Хобби
Thanks for not editing out all the failed attempts to find the problem...really helps us DIYers to see the thought processes when troubleshooting. 🤠
I just had this exact problem one day ago at my daughters condo. I knew it was a neutral issue but the tester showed same indication as this video. It turned out to be a loose neutral on an outside wall and was corroded and discolored. Cleaned up the wire and installed new outlet. Works great now. I will remember to unplug everything to see if it indicates open neutral next time.
I love how there are some YT videos on electrical having homeowners buy a torque wrench (and other esoteric stuff) for doing house wiring like its the space shuttle. Then there is this, where it is a actual Commercial (apartments) Newer Build with actual licenced Electricians and a whole slew of super basic mistakes. Righty Tighty - and make sure its tighty!
This video helped me take the right approach to find a loose outlet causing my hot ground. The culprit was an outdoor outlet on the patio from 1980. One of the white wires was loose out of the quickwire back punch. One of the black wires was nearly as loose and came right out. The patio is on the same circuit as three of my bathroom GFCI, resulting in my GFCI not testing properly. Going to be upgrading the patio outlet to a GFCI now. Thank you!
Thank you thank you thank you! Our power has been out in most of the house for three months with this exact issue. And today the workong plugs went out as well. I thought we'd have to pay money we didn't have to fix it. instead I got it done myself in 30 minutes. I'm so happy I could cry.
Wonderful!
I've been on the same hunt in a 60 year old mobile home, that you demonstrated in your place. I came here hoping you'd have a clue. Sure enough it shows Hot-Ground, when something is plugged in somewhere along the circuit, fools the outlet tester. That was the clue I needed and did not know about. Many thanks!! Your super clear attention to the details is fantastic.
Thank you ! I'm 52 and starting my first actually maintenance job soon and was looking for exactly this kind of trouble shooting video using a GFCI tester. This was great !
Thank you for this video. After hours and hours, I diagnosed and solved the open neutral in my new house. It turned out to be in a junction box in the attic. Inside was a triple neutral connection with too much insulation left on one of the three wires and a defective wire nut that had a layer of plastic over the metal spiral. Again, thank you so much for the guidance! I can finally move on with my life now, ugh!
Plain and simple: your video was priceless! Thank you for posting this; gonna pull all my outlets and check connections!
I have power to my shed working just fine for the last 8-10 years and today no lights and no power, or so I thought. I plugged in a tester and to my surprise it showed a hot ground reverse. I know for a fact it WAS wired correctly so I assumed something was up in my panel since my a/c was just replaced. I thought maybe they knocked something loose. Before I called the company, I decided to check google, mainly to arm myself. After watching this, I realize I need to go unplug stuff (mini-fridge, chargers, etc) and test again and possibly start removing face plates. Thank you for giving me the confidence to tackle this! Before your video, I had no clue on how to proceed.
Thanks for the video. It really helped me understand the wiring in the bedroom that was all of a sudden giving me trouble. Turned out that the neutral in one of my sockets was almost burned up. I replaced the old outlet and wired it up correctly and viola, it worked...two green lights for all outlets in the bedroom. Thanks for the THOROUGH explanation.
As an electrician, I've run into my share of these. One thing I noticed on that last receptacle was the loose neutral was discolored because of heating from the loose connection. No fire hazard there. None at all.
This is why one should never quickwire receptacles - it's inevitable one will come loose, just like losing on Vegas. Pigtails were also mentioned, and any time one can avoid using a device to carry current through the circuit is a good thing.
Yep I noticed the discoloration on the neutral also if it ain't white questions should be answered.
Having issue in my mobile home have 120v in all non working outlets but no power when plugging something in tester is reading hot/ground reversed Ive dont everything in this video and still getting the same reading I have no lights in three rooms and only one outlet in those rooms work can’t find the issue
Thank you very much for this detailed video.
I thought I checked every receptacle 1.bath room,2. Garage , 3.patio, 4.attic and checked the wiring . Then three hours later.
Watched your video this morning for the second time and proceed to check everything again.
Yes the issue is solved at the GFCI switch.
The 5 minute break is totally recommended. 👌
Thank you so much 😊 !!
Nothing wrong with walking away and coming back with a clear mind. I do it all time
For sure, definitely helped here :) thanks for watching Jerry
Better than doing ElectroBOOM!
Yessir
This is a great video.... Thanks for not editing the video... it also show how to troubleshoot. Sometimes it's not 1- 2 I'm done! It takes patience...
You stayed with it until you found the problem. Great video.
Yes, thanks for watching mrkeith
That was so helpful, (especially the “so frustrated, had to take a 5 minute break”😂). I’m wiring an in-wall iron lamp/plug and after a few pops in the box, the rest of the room showed the hot/ground switch after previously being fine. Your search explained that I really just needed to tighten the connections again. Of course the box they provided is too small for all the wires they think I’m putting in it!
Thank you so much Rebecca :) So glad you got it fixed to :)
Loved it, i had the exact problem and checked with my circuit receptacle tester and the results were exactly the same, so i went to RUclips and your video was the first one to address this issue and the next day following your diagnosis "BAM" ITS FIXED.
Thank you i asked the right question and got the correct answer life is grand.😊
Your video was my exact scenario!! I had to look through 6 sockets before I found the culprit. Loose hot and ground wires!!!Tighten it up and it was all good!!!Thanks
I enjoyed seeing the unpolished version of what it takes to track this stuff down. I arrived here because I'm doing the same thing right now, but still trying to find EVERYTHING that is on the circuit to test! I still haven't found it. But I reached my "need a break" stage and am sitting here with my cold adult beverage enjoying the fact that this happens to everybody eventually....
I am most amazed at how EVERY connection seemed loose. Even if you didn't find the problem, you'd have improved the situation significantly. I'd be tempted to pull them all now because whoever put those in didn't seem to own a screwdriver. And without properly-formed loops, I have to imagine that this wasn't an "expert."
Lots of average Joes when it comes to new construction, this electrical company was pretty bad BUT the good thing is this is the only unit I've seen in the building this bad. Although I don't work there much anymore.
The connection screws ‘could’ have been tight at the time they were made, but over just a few minutes the copper creeps and it is not as secure. Add years of cycling current/temp and they can become looser.
Fixed an issue I had, didn’t even think to check all the neutrals upstream to fix an outlet downstream. Loose neutral is what my problem was. Can’t thank you enough!
Glad to hear that good job Bob 👍
Your extra time just saved somebodys life, and now they will never know it. Good job and thanks. 💙 T.E.N.
Thank you so much! I’m not so stressed now that I can try this myself before calling an electrician. I just bought the tester and your video was very clear.
Thanks Festivus
This video was extremely helpful! I had almost the same exact issue, tons of loose wires and wires installed the wrong way around the screw. Cleaned everything up and worked like magic!
Good work Bill !!
There's no problem with wrapping your wire on the screw as long as the loop is going in the direction of the tightening of your screw. He demonstrates that in the video when he tightens up the screws on the receptacles
Thanks for your video it is much appreciated!! I’m currently dealing with this same problem with my own home and I’ve eliminated three outlets that had the same reading. Now I need to pull the bed back and check that outlet which I will do after my frustration break.. great video and truant you for taking the time to share with us..
Thanks Cecil let us know if you get it fixed!
Just went through the same process and of course, after tightening many loose neutrals, it was the next to last outlet in circuit. Funny thing is several other receptacles had looser neutrals than the culprit. Anyway saving the cost of an electrician to come out is always a good thing!
Always the last one 😆
Nice work! Thanks for sharing the experience. I learned a lot.
I get to do this tonight for the outlets in all my bedrooms. Thanks for the video.
awesome video it was very informative to watch you troubleshoot the problem. I learned a lot
Thanks for your RUclips video. It helped me find an open, neutral wire. Showed up as a dead outlet, but the open neutral was in a 3-way switch controlling ceiling lights on the same circuit. What a pain to find. Scratched my head many times.
You may have done it off camera, but anyone who works on these outlets also check the ground is tight. Helpful video thanks for posting
Had the same problem. Thanks for the guidance. Neutral wire loose on one outlet and plastic melted.
Thank you for saving me time and money
Thank you very much for putting out this video. It helped me quite a lot. My tester kept showing reverse ground was wrong but I know it was correct and thanks to watching you go to various outlets, I did the same. only to find that the outlet outside my new home was completely backward with the white where the black should be and so on. Once I fixed that, everything worked fine.
Good find! :) Wiring on outlets can be tricky to troubleshoot for sure !
Tracking each outlet on circuit is the only sure way , but that was a lot , understand the break necessity...✌️👍☝️💪🙏. ,,🤔☯️😸
I hate when this happens, it’s always the last one.
Thanks. I have same sort of symptoms and now I am going to just look at every outlet and every wire nut. This was very helpful because there are a ton of vids on here explaining what an open neutral and reversed hot are but none really showing how they come about.
Thanks!
that was a nice fix. you saved them from problems down the road by repairing all the lose wires on the outlets. I say that was a fine job.
One thing not stressed in this video .... diyers please take note....the tester showed there was power in every box.
Because the neutrals were open, had the light switch been on, voltage would travel from the hot, through the bulb, and down the neutral. Yes the neutral would read 120 volts to ground and the light or anything plugged in would not work, but their would still be killer voltage in the boxes.
Non-contact voltage detectors will indicate power in the box just like the recepticle tester did.
Be careful out there.
Look for information or videos on "hot neutrals" for a better understanding.
Good job you showed us something to learn from .Thanks!
Thanks for watching :)
Wouldn't call it a waste, you had endless loose connections that needed fixing plus I learnt from your quest.
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Thanks Jonny ! Great way to look at it 😁
Had the same issue. Sloppy installation from the original installer. Outstanding video, good work! Subscribed!
Thank you Peter 🙏
Great video, it was really helpful. I liked the 5 min break.
Thanks for the video. It helped me find my problem. Same deal, one of the neutral wires had gotten loose from one of my sockets. Fixed it up right quick.
Thank you very much this was very helpful no doubt saved me a couple hundred dollars it cost me a $12 outlet tester I really appreciate you giving the tip of unplugging anything from the outlet I had basically the exact same scenario it was very very helpful thank you so much
Awesome 👏 glad you got it James!!
Thanks for this. I got lucky: found the loose neutral on the third outlet try. The next suspect was behind an upright piano. As soon as I got a look at the socket, I could see the wire almost completely out of the quick-connect hole and the discolored insulation.
Thanks! I'm well trained in electrical, but my tester had me fooled. The travel trailer I'm working on was working fine, then wasn't. A swapped hot lead with ground made absolutely no sense, now I know why!
Thanks man! Mine was saying it had switched natural and hot but that wasn't it because it used to work. A ground on the circuit came lose that's what it was. Thanks man!
Thanks for sharing with us Jeremey glad you got it working!!
I’m almost on my 7th hour doing this today. So frustrating. Thanks for this.
Good job. By turning that hook around I can tell you know what you are doing. Those brand new buildings are wired badly, have noticed that in two different projects on two different counties. Lack of trade people causes low quality work and compromising. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching David. I've noticed this is true and it's really sad and potentially dangerous
Thanks! This was super helpful! Only had to check three outlets before I found the culprit!
Sweet! Good job 👍
Greaat! My audio interface was shocking me everytime I played guitar. My PC case did the same. Great video, will apply this when reaching home.
Glad you got it figured out!!
Thank you for this video. This help me save some time.
Good video! At 7:34 in the video, the wall electrical receptacle is recessed below the wall cover so I would use a spacer to bring the receptacle forward to be flush with the drywall and the wall cover. Interesting, the person who originally wired these receptacles used the receptacles themselves to be a continuous path for the electrical circuit by using the 2 silver screws (white neutral wires) and 2 brass screws (black hot wires). The one pair of white and black wires bring in the electricity into the electrical box and then then the other pair of white and black wires bring out of the electrical box to the next electrical box will only add more room for error and problems for the entire circuit. If the person had "pig tailed" the wires in each of the electrical boxes, there would only be a black and white wire going to the receptacle and the rest of the electrical circuit would be continuous and undisturbed. If there was an "open neutral" electrical situation, it would only occur at the one receptacle itself and not affect the rest of the circuit.
Thank you Bill for the detailed reply :) Very useful
Dude you did a pretty good job troubleshooting it man it's all good that's the same problem I have thanks for the help
very helpful, I was able to use the information and fix the problem myself, thank you for the information 👍
Thanks for watching!
Great video. I've got a similar problem where some outlets on a circuit work and others say Hot/Gnd Reverse. But all outlets and lights worked before I overloaded the circuit with an electric pressure washer. The breaker is good, so I'm pretty sure it is the neutral problem. I just have to go find it. My guess is an outlet fried somehow and isn't passing the neutral forward. We'll see. But your video has me on the right trail. Thanks.
Let us know if what you find! :)
@@ApartmentMaintenancePro Well no luck so far, looked at every outlet and ceiling light on circuit. Also looked at all the switches since a lot of neutrals are tied in the switches - not sure I did a thorough job on the switches especially a 4 ganger. However the breaker is a GFCI/AFCI type which I was not as aware of, my bad. So that's why no GFCI Outlets since the breaker does that. Theory I have now is that the load from the bad electric pressure washer damaged that expensive breaker. I got a new GFCI/AFCI breaker from Home Depot and will try that tomorrow morning and I'll post results.
Sorry for too many updates without results. Put new GFCI breaker in and same problem i.e. one outlet works fine; but everything after that point shows Hot/Gnd Reverse. So the breaker is working correctly. I did find that when I moved bundle of neutrals inside the 4 gang switches box, I momentarily got power to an outlet. So hope that was not random. It looks like half a dozen white neutral wires jammed together in back of box. So next step is to re-pull out all the wires and ensure everyone is connected. I used to re-do basements and when I wired I always made lights and outlets on different circuits. But this house has them mixed which makes things a little messier I think. Wish me luck!
@@ApartmentMaintenancePro Success. I missed checking the ceiling light switch in one of the bedrooms. Removed switch, looked at wires and nothing looked bad. But the switch was sending 2 neutrals forward. I tightened the wire nut and then all the outlets and lights worked in the rest of the circuit. So your tip was right i.e. the Hot/Gnd Reverse indication on the tester did turn out to mean a neutral wire loose or off. Thank you !
Awesome video, thanks again for the information.
Thanks!
Thanks so much, this helped a lot.
Thanks for the information very good video keep the videos coming thanks again..👍👍
You bet, thanks for watching!
Thank man. Best troubleshooting and learning.
Thanks for this :)
This was very informative
Thanks Lu!
Excellent vid!
I don't know of any other way to fix this issue. Panel, then each one at a time on receptacles looking for the problem. Those screws were so loose it's good you did. They would've eventually caused lost conductivity or sparking and tripping
Also worth considering... an outlet could have been missing the little brass jumper that joins the two neutral screws (removed if it is a split outlet). That wasn't the case today, but I'm sure you were looking for it.
Thank you for posting this
You're welcome
Great educational video, thank you!
Awesome thank you this helped immensely
Glad it helped thanks for watching 😀
Thank you so much I went in there and wiggled the one that was running my refrigerator and found out my tester went nuts. I never thought about testing both sides of a plug-in. It was running my refrigerator!....?
Good job man.
You made it simple thanks
Yup! That was it: open neutral. Thanks!
👍
With all those loose screws I'd say the worst one was the person responsible for wiring the receptacles.
😛 It’s always the last one. Same thing at my daughter’s house. Good job
GREAT VIDEO! I think helps put me on right track. Just couldn't figure out how I could have that reading and it not be a short. But one thing I wonder, is why guys (Which most but not all electricians are) wire outlets 2 in 2 out. There are reasons why it causes additional problems and also would not pass inspection in some areas. Thanks
No idea. I'm a very average electrician. :) Thanks for watching
@@ApartmentMaintenancePro Hey, was following your advice to unplug everything on that circuit, and guess what? The very, and I do mean very first outlet I went to unplug , the lights came back on. Swear to god. So I opened it up, saw the neutral 1/2 in 1/2 out, and wa la you know the rest. Thanks for answering my question by the way, and I hope you don't wire your outlets that way. Had mine been wired correctly, only that plug would have gone bad, instead of EVERYTHING down the line going bad. Remember they used to wire strings of xmas tree lites like that, and when one went out, they all went out. You may be too young to remember that, but they even figured out it was a crappy way. Anyway, take care, thanks again. D
@@doloressalomon5732 Glad you got it working Dolores, take care :)
Good video, thanks.
How did he identify the first outlet?
Congrats on finding the issue, One mistake was not working hot and testing and not assuming all the receptacles were good, next time it may not be a loose screw.
Thanks for the input! :)
Thanks for this vid. 💯👌🏼
I appreciate this video
I just subscribed. You're the boss!
Thanks for the sub Ransom!
Very helpful video.. Thanks for sharing..
Thanks for watching Marvs!
Was that last plug on the same series as the others? I’m having the same issue but can’t find the fix on any that are to the same breaker.
Who did the initial wiring of all those receptacles? Fred, the plumber? They were all installed poorly ... loose screw connections, bad wire nut connections, wiring all the receptacles serially instead of in parallel, no electrical tape wrapping of the connections.
Nice troubleshooting. Sadly to say, it just comes to show you many times particularly in mass produced tract homes and new apartment buildings as well, the workmanship is often very shoddy since many contractors get paid by the job, and their goal is to get as many homes as possible ready to put on the market, particularly the housing boom of the 90s and early 2000s prior to the subprime mortgage crisis.
Ya it’s crazy how much crap work is out there - need more inspectors or more quality installers? Probably a mixture of both
Are you working from the last outlet on the circuit back to the breaker panel? And will a outlet before the loose neutral work normal
That was very SAFE..IT take time to Be Safe than Sorry not wired Correct..
Good Job..
My son bought a house recently that had an electrical issue according to the inspector. In the basement, finished 20 years ago, there were 2 reverse polarity receptacles and the sub panel for the finished area, there were breakers connected to conductors every other vertical space.. I opened the main panel and a 2 pole 60 was wired black and red on the breaker, white and bare on the neutral/ground bar. In the sub panel it was red and white on the buss lugs L1&2, the black on the neutral, and bare on ground bar. So after some verifying, I moved the black to L2 and the white to neutral. After turning the power on, there were 2 showed correct and 12 showed reversed. It had been this way for 20 years. It is amazing how stupid some people are that say they are electricians. And yes this was contracted work, not DIY!
Crazy stuff. Thanks for sharing that with us 👍
All these outlets were "speed wired". This is wrong. There should have been one hot and one neutral into each receptacle. You take the inbound hot, bond it to the outgoing hot with a pigtail, which goes to the receptacle. Same with the neutrals. With speed wiring, if you pull one receptacle out, all the downstream receptacles are disconnected. Moreover, each receptacle carries the load for every downstream device. With pigtails, each receptacle only carries the load for the devices connected to it.
Good troubleshooting
Thank you Aamir :)
Thanks for the realistic troubleshooting video!! Lmao I had to step out today to take a 5 min break!! Lmao
Thanks !! I’ve been doing it lately when I get stumped and it helps for sure!
Just fixed this issue in a new build. and it was due to decorative outlets. the plates just don't hold. I hate decorative....it's more expensive and less durable.
Ya I’m not a fan of the decorative outlet covers
is that possible that neutral line broke?
nice fix. I have the same problem and still cannot find the loose neutral.
I once found a situation where someone pigtailed a hot to both the neutral and ground side of an outlet and the neutral to the hot side of the outlet and the outlet tester was reading correct. a cheap 6 outlet power strip that was also wired backwards from the factory was plugged into this outlet effectively correcting the reversed hot/neutral situation at the outlet. so now imagine a tv plugged into the outlet and a cable box plugged into the power strip and everything is fine until you connect an HDMI cable between the 2 devices and the hdmi instantly and permanently welds itself into the port, heats up and trips the breaker. This customer returned 2 new damaged tvs and a cable converter before having the electrical inspected.
That is absolutely crazy, thanks for sharing that with us!!
Good lord. What are the odds of that!? Amazing coincidence.
I would've sworn that people on the TV were either talking, walking or running backwards
Could it have been an open neutral in the fixture if it wasn't that last outlet?
I just bought two Klein outlet testers. One has the gcfi tester. The one that is regular shows that my wiring is good on all of my outlets in my travel trailer. The one that also has the gcfi tester shows all of my outlets have neutral hot reversed and less than 30 volts. Is this common for travel trailers to be reversed? All the outlets work just fine when I plug into all of them, I thought if the wiring was reversed the outlets won’t work though.
Just had the exact same issue with my home. Found almost every outlet (8 in total) either had loose connections or the pigtails weren't twisted.
And what would a call to a electric service have cost? I could do what you did here except I'm confused about the terminology...hot ground reverse, loose neutral, and I hear ground wire a lot. In order to do it myself I'd have to spend a good amount of time learning this terminology. If I was younger I would. I will throw the main breaker as I have 2 indoor outlets not working, 1 outdoor, and I'd like to replace an outlet in my garage. I also have 3 outdoor entrance fixtures that I want to disconnect and paint. Thanks for the video
You would either learn the terminology or learn to come up with your own terminology....that's what mostly being a DIYer is all about. I make time on the weekends to inform/educate myself.
Excellent. Thanks!
You're welcome!
I hope you made a note on which outlet was the home outlet (The first in the chain) so it makes life easier in the future not only in that unit but others in the building that may develop the same issue.
That home outlet and cable TV connections make my OCD scream being sideways and in three separate single gang boxes. That can be reduced down to two single gang boxes, one for the outlet and one with a dual keystone plate and two F connector keys installed.
Thanks for the input 👍
i am wondering how you got any of the outlets to read with the proper lights. With an incomplete path back to the breaker box, every outlet should be giving either open neutral or the false 'hot and ground reversed'
Good job 👍
Thanks 👍