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How can an outlet have a hot neutral
I have a home circuit with 8 outlets, one of them switched, and 5 of the outlets show neutral to ground 60v, hot to ground 60v, hot to neutral 120v. 3 outlets work fine. The switched outlet is one of the 5 bad ones. In the switch there are 2 hot wires on either side of the switch, and one hot tied to a neutral with a wire nut. Any ideas how to fix this? I have tried to unhook the neutral/hot connection with no help. All of the outlets appear to be wired properly. The 5 bad outlets work, but I cannot put a surge protector on them (reads not grounded properly) and in fact in any lightening storm, items attached to the 5 outlets get fried. Any help would be appreciated.
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I want to make sure I understand your configuration.
You have one double receptacle that has either the top or bottom receptacle controlled by a switch (for a room light). On the same branch circuit you have another 7 double receptacle outlets. 5 out of the 8 total receptacles fail. The failing 5 receptacles show a 60 Vac between Neutral and ground and 120 Vac between Neutral and Hot. Correct so far? The switch configuration is also unclear. Does the handle of tour switch have the words ON/OFF embossed onto it? Normally I would expect to find power being brought to either the top or bottom receptacle. The hot would be pigtailed to a switched leg by connecting a White (retasked, black tape) to feed the switch and a black return from the switch to the screw on the receptacle. The bridge link between the lower and upper receptacle is open on the hot side and solid on the Neutral side of the receptacle. Is that what you have? |
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Actually there are 2 outlets controlled by the switch (just discovered that last night). Both outlets, top and bottom, are controlled totally by the switch, that is not set up with top control bottom continuous (tabs are not broken).
The white that is tied to black in the switch box is not marked with black tape. There are two black wires on the switch, and in the box, when the switch is on, the black that is connected to white is energized when the switch is turned on. The switch has on/off on it. I get 60v across hot-ground, 60v across neutral-ground, and 120 across hot-neutral. But 3 outlets on the circuit work fine. |
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