I have a problem in a house I bought. There's 5 ceiling fans one 15 amp circuit. There's only a hot and a neutral from the breaker to each ceiling fan. The fans spin really slow. I took the canopy from the fan off and ohmed the hot and neutral leg. I have 68 volts through the hot and 38 through the neutral. Could this be from too much load on one the hot leg and no ground cause the neutral to have 38 volts?

What do you mean, you Ohmed it and got 2 voltages on the Hot and Neutral?
If you are getting voltage on the neutral to ground, it is likely a neutral problem. What voltage do you have between Hot and Neutral?

Ohms and Voltage are to very different animals. They can be measured by using a multi-meter that is set for the appropriate test.

You cannot get a proper Ohm's reading on a closed circuit. To accurately measure the resistance of a component, you have to use only that component otherwise you get the resistance of the entire circuit.

With the Voltage section of the multi-meter, using the red probe on the black conductor and the black probe on the white conductor, what voltage do you see?

As I mentioned there is no ground wire. I guess that's the way they were wired. The house has vaulted ceilings, so the previous owner had some one run conduit from the panel to the roof and then drill through the beam that runs in the middle of the ceiling. So conduit goes from the panel to a box on the roof and then down into each room. There is a hot wire and a neutral wire only. There is no ground wire at all. So I took a volt meter and ohmed out the hot wire, touching the hot wire and also the metal fan box. I got 68volts instead of the 120volts. Then I touched the neutral wire and also the fan box and got 38 volts. I figured maybe it was coming from the source. So I traced it back to the panel and found the breaker it was on. I disconnected the wire that leads to the ceiling fans. Left the breaker on and got 120 volts out of the breaker. When I touched the neutrual buss in the panel I got 0 volts. Like I mentioned there is 6 different ceiling fans on this 15 amp circuit.

My problem is the ceiling fans are running so slow that its pointless to have them on. But there's a ceiling fan in the kitchen that is not on the same circuit. This fan runs on 120 volts. It runs fast or normal I should say. This is why I am writing this. I noticed the bed room fans run so slow and the air output is so minimal that its pointless to have them on. Could I be getting a low voltage due to to many fans on a circuit and voltage through a neutral due to a lack of a ground wire from the panel ?

Start at the panel and verify 120 volts, then out from there, That metal box may not be a good ground or reference to measure off. Plug an extension cord in a known good outlet. Then use the cords neutral and the hot you want to measure, look for 120 volts, if not, it is a hot problem. Otherwise it is a Neutral Problem

Sounds like some of the circuit could be series wired. Do all the fans come on at once? How are they controlled?

They are controlled by the pull chain. No they don't come on all and once

Can you trace the voltage starting at the first fan, then the next and so on? Can you determine how they are wired? 5 fans on a circuit isn't enough to create a low power situation. Can you get to the first fan and disconnect the rest and then try just that fan?

Yea that's the voltage I came up with on the first fan. What's weird is when I disconted the wire at the breaker and ohmed the breaker. I get 120volts. I touch the neutral buss in the panel. I get 0 volts. But at the first fan I get 68 volts out of the hot leg and 38 out of the neutral. Its only a distance of 30 feet. The panel is in the garage. The farthest fan is about 110feet away. All the other fans are are in the 60 range on the hot leg and in the 30 range on the neutrals. I thought maybe not having a ground wire in the circuit might be causing voltage through the neutrals.

That extension cord should have worked great, try it yet?
This will tell you if you are looking for a bad neutral or a bad hot connection.