Cliff Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) And learned sumpin. When you are going to go in an existing conduit box don't just throw the appropriate breaker. CHECK THE NEUTRAL AND GROUND with a tester. Check em all. I got a slick little circuit breaker finder. Used it to find the breaker. Threw it to off. opened the box checked the neutral and hot lines and got no energy. Then as I was working my hand brushed the neutral and up against the metal box. OUCH~!!!! So in bafflement I tested that and lo there was 125 VAC between the neutral and the ground. I found that breaker that energized that neutral and tossed it to off. IT seems to energize nothing else in the building so it's locked out till an electrician can look at it. Edited November 19, 2017 by Ron Dudelston Added tags p_toad, lew, steven newman and 2 others 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lew Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 That ain't good! Maybe a floating ground problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stick486 Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 WHEW!!! you know there's Breathe right strips for your snot problem... less painful too... steven newman, Cal and HARO50 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HandyDan Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Shocking. Everything needs checked when in uncharted territory. Never know what tricks have been played. HARO50 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred W. Hargis Jr Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 It's unbelievable what you can find in some homes electric-wise. I've greatly expanded my vocabulary fixing things like you just mentioned....really glad you weren't hurt badly. HARO50 and Cal 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 2 hours ago, lew said: floating ground The building is over 250 years old. The ground is a roaring joke. A little cable that disappears into the gravel in the little alcove in the cellar where my water system is. I recently replaced the water and electric line from the well to the house. The old one is copper. Now that it's cut off I plan to braise a connection to that old copper pipe and reinforce the ground. HARO50, lew and HandyDan 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Dudelston Posted October 20, 2017 Report Share Posted October 20, 2017 I feel your pain Cliff. Back in 2003, we were building a 20,000 sq. ft. addition on the church and were doing much of the work ourselves. There were four of us working under another's electrical license which was all legal. I thought all of us knew what we were doing but one of us (an electrical engineer) wired a receptacle backwards. That is, wired the neutral to the hot side and the hot side to the neutral and it was the last receptacle on the run. Of course, it made the neutral hot for that circuit and as luck would have it, I was the next guy in line. I randomly grabbed a hold of the neutral while working in a 12 x 12 junction box and it lit me up. We had words with the said "electrical engineer". p_toad, Cal, Fred W. Hargis Jr and 2 others 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schnewj Posted October 20, 2017 Report Share Posted October 20, 2017 I had a Georgia Tech Grad, with an EE degree working for me, and he couldn't even troubleshoot a simple circuit for me on an accident investigation. I had to take him by the hand and teach him simple electrical principles. I guess it's the same old story...what do you call the guy who graduated last in his class at medical school...DOCTOR! Stick486, HARO50, Cal and 1 other 1 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artie Posted January 16, 2018 Report Share Posted January 16, 2018 Just glad the shock was your hand, and didn’t go through your chest/heart area. Not to be the newcomer here giving advice, but if you get a shock through the chest, your heart can go into (I’ll probably get the medical terms wrong) fibrillation. You can think you’re ok because you’re walkin and talkin, but die from it two days later. An electrician friend of mine got a shock like that, felt crappy, went home at end of day, and complained to his wife.She drove him (against his will) to the emergency room, and they had to use the paddles on him to get his heart’s rythym back in order. I did some of my apprentice time with an old timer that would check voltages up to 240 volts with his two fingers. Now I was stupid enough to try that once, and happy to leave it at that. Cal, HARO50 and Dadio 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schnewj Posted January 16, 2018 Report Share Posted January 16, 2018 Just because he was an "old timer" doesn't mean that he was smart...just real lucky. The first time I arced a 220V outlet at 14 because I threw the wrong breaker off, I learned to ALWAYS check before sticking my fingers into the wires. Oh the stories I could tell about electrical misadventures would take hours. steven newman, Cal and HARO50 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artie Posted January 16, 2018 Report Share Posted January 16, 2018 Kinda like we survived the Darwin thinning out process. As I used to tell my helpers, making the same mistake over and over is a sign of stupidity, making new mistakes all the time is a sign of intelligence. Alas, most of them didn’t get it. HARO50, steven newman and Cal 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven newman Posted January 16, 2018 Report Share Posted January 16, 2018 Doing a demo for a factory remodel....new everything inside the office. Sparky cut the 270V light free from the conduit.....never switched the breaker off...happened to brush against one of the conduits....and got a burn mark on my arm.....needless to say....."SPARKY!!!!" he didn't believe anyone, until he touched the tube....about knocked him on his rearend...THEN he went and popped the breakers...all of them... Cal, Artie, p_toad and 1 other 1 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al B Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 Guess I'm really lucky. When I was an apprentice welder, I was welding test plates in the welding booth . I had hung the tongs on a hanger with a welding rod still in it, so that I could take the hot test plate and dip it into some water for cooling. When I stood up, I brushed my head against the welding rod, with my hands and wet gloves on the metal grounding table. . I couldn't move. It felt like someone had wrapped their arms around me and was squeezing as tight as possible. Suddenly, it was gone. A friend saw what was happening and quickly pulled the welding rod away. I think I'd be ashes today if he hadn't seen what happened. I learned a lot that day. p_toad, HARO50, steven newman and 2 others 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stick486 Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 5 hours ago, Artie said: making new mistakes all the time is a sign of intelligence.... and more fun... why make the same ones twice when there are so many new ones out there to try... p_toad, Cal, HARO50 and 1 other 1 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HandyDan Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 9 hours ago, Stick486 said: and more fun... why make the same ones twice when there are so many new ones out there to try... A lot of mistakes involve pain and I'm not much into sadomasochism. Some of mine do make me laugh. steven newman, HARO50, p_toad and 1 other 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stick486 Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 11 minutes ago, HandyDan said: Some of mine do make me laugh. stick w/ those.. there's plenty to go around.... HARO50, Cal, steven newman and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave in Ohio Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 I know this is really late, but........................................ It isn't uncommon to have the situation Cliff described in either residential or commercial wiring. In the familiar 120/240v setup that most homes and many small commercial buildings have, there are two legs, each at 120 volts, that are exactly opposite in phase. Line-to-line voltage will be approximately 240 volts, and either line-to-neutral(or ground) will be about 120 volts. The neutral will carry the unbalanced current from two opposing 120v legs back to the source, in a multiwire branch circuit. Electrical professionals should understand this, but it's not intuitive to the untrained person. This is why the NEC was changed a few years back to require that all legs of a multiwire branch circuit(one with a shared neutral) open simultaneously. As is usually the case, existing circuitry was not required to be changed. Of course, many residences suffer from uninspected "bootleg" electrical installations, as well, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. There is also a three-phase flavor of MWBC's, but very few of them apply to residential occupancies. I hope this helps a little. Dave HARO50, Dadio, p_toad and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmealy Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 Meet your new best friends HARO50, Cal, Stick486 and 1 other 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 From the voice of experience - those are ok, but can (may be notorious for) giving a false positive reading. My BIL & I chased a false positive for nearly two hours this past summer before locating the source - a live extension cord about 5 feet away! I use it all the time and feel pretty confidant when it shows no juice though. HARO50 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roly Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 1 hour ago, Cal said: From the voice of experience - those are ok, but can (may be notorious for) giving a false positive reading. My BIL & I chased a false positive for nearly two hours this past summer before locating the source - a live extension cord about 5 feet away! I use it all the time and feel pretty confidant when it shows no juice though. Test it on a known live source before and after you test the circuit your working on. That way you know it is working. Roly HARO50 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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