How to Find an Open Neutral 

@@alano2875 Thanks for the input. Glad you were able to solve your problem. This could be helpful to others.

I’m glad you found it. Thanks for the feedback.

@@morganinspectionservices3840, I was able to find the open neutral wire, after inspecting 5 receptacles (I wasn’t sure which one was closer to the breaker box). But took the opportunity to replace all the receptacles with new ones. Thanks again!

You’re welcome. I appreciate the feedback.

Glad it helped

Thank you

I’m glad it helped. Thanks for the feedback.

So glad it helped.

Thank you for the feedback.

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you for the feedback. I hope you are quickly able to solve your problem. I would love to hear what you find.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 I followed your video and after checking 3 boxes, there was a neutral that was not connected in a junction box. It looked like they forgot to even connect it to the 2 other neutrals that had a wire nut. Thanks again. I will definitely be checking your site in the future for more ideas.

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks for the feedback. This encourages me to continue making videos.

So glad to hear that.

Thanks for the feedback. So glad the video was helpful.

Great info. Thank you.

Glad it helped. Hopefully, you were able to get the issue fixed.

Good information. Thanks for sharing.

Glad it was helpful!

Great. Glad it helped. Thanks for subscribing.

Thanks for the feedback, and you’re welcome.

You're welcome!

Thanks so much.

You are welcome!

I hope you were able to find the issue. I am always interested to hear about problems like this and how you figured things out.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 yes, I did find the issue. The first receptacle on the circuit, which was working fine, had a broken neutral going down stream. I will always start at the panel first, and so on. Thanks! 👍

Good advice

Thanks for the feedback

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful.

Appreciate the feedback.

👌

How? Without a neutral, current can’t flow for the GFCI to monitor or compare….now if you send your return current down the equipment grounding conductor instead then yes. The GFCI will sense the current leaving but not returning on its respective neutral……..pop goes the trip mechanism!

You're welcome.

Thank you. Grazie! Gracias.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks. Hope it helped.

Thanks for watching!

Yea he didn't find the disconnected N, only isolated the issue to a disconnected N ... Like you said, to find that open N can be a nightmare. Next he said the N had 120V on it which is also incorrect.

Buy an Amprobe.

Generally the circuits run plug to plug and you have a wire serving as a "homerun" back to the panel that comes into a plug where your circuit begins. To determine where it begins is easy when you turn a breaker off a section of plugs along with switches will be off. When you open them up there will be in most one set of wires into a receptacle and one out to the next receptacle. The homerun can only supply 8 receptacles per circuit, or 10 lights per nec code. Lights in residential are 99% branched off of the nearest plug, 1% are supplied by a homerun. Tighten all the neutral connections on your receptacles and ensure all your wire nut connections on your neutrals are tight. Over time they can come loose because of the heat the electricity creates at the resistance points which are your junctions or makeups and the receptacle connections.

@@nicholecrouch311 #1 not all electricians follow code AFTER the fact. So when alterations are done, they find the quickest route. Also when they do repairs, they do the quickest route. Also when they are re-wiring and no permit is pulled and this is a quick re-wire, they do not always follow code. Next the connections become loose over time due to vibration. As the current flows, it creates vibration. So while your theory is correct about the homerun feeds the 1st outlet, NOT always the case.

I just spent 8hrs today tracking down a loose neutral. Not fun.

My guess is that in your friends house some circuits maybe wired as multi-wire branch circuits as yhat would explain the voltage going over 120v and the 56v drop from bad/loosd connection.

So your friend actually had a problem that I consider a lost neutral, and not a disconnected neutral. I have a totally different video on the lost neutral. Lost neutrals can certainly cause a lot of problems and damage equipment inside the home. Here is a link to that video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S3dvzOZm-58.htmlsi=8tbL_PIZcRw7USf0

I told this guy he made a mistake on his video and he argued with me and refused to tell me that i was wrong and shut me off. Don't expect an answer from him

Thats a great point, a loose N at the panel will probably show good until there is a load on it. While it may read 120V at the outlet, you put a load on it and it won't pass current. We had a 240V dryer line show 240V and 120V on each leg but would not run the dryer. Apparently there was some resistance on that cable and would not allow current to flow but let the voltage thru. Took 2 appliance repair guys and 2 trips back to the appliance store to verify the dryer WAS working.

You’re welcome

Hope it was helpful.

You're welcome

@@morganinspectionservices3840 Be honest I just follow the process you did in your video and I found the bad box and that electrical box coming directly from electrical panel and same time that electrical box supplies electricity to other 10 boxes , So I take care that electrical box and happy family , we got power back to the rest of the electrical boxes. Thanks.

Thanks for the comment. Good advice. Always like hearing about other people’s experiences because I learn from each one.

be a teacher to tell that the N has 120V on it ???

Putting a load on the circuit doesn’t necessarily help find an open neutral - it just changes the indication that your tester gives you. If you’re having problems in your garage, and there are several receptacles that are daisychained together, then your tester should help you to determine where the problem actually starts.

It could be at the breaker box, or it could be in a junction box in the attic. It all depends on how they wired the house.

believe it or not , I found the 8th outlet was attached and it was the one that needs to be changed. I just do not believe that there are 8 outlet connected to each other@@morganinspectionservices3840

You’re welcome

I'm glad you were able to find the problem. I appreciate the feedback. I will try to make another video and make sure to point out what you are suggesting.

It is possible to have a hot ground reverse, but it is highly unlikely to have one.

Hi Eric. A home run typically runs to the outlet closest to the panel and then subsequent outlets are fed from that outlet in a daisy chain. If you are saying that there are several outlets that only have one set of wires coming into the box, then, perhaps you have a junction box with the hot wire coming in and then several wires going from that junction box to feed individual outlets/receptacles. So with every load unplugged, are you still getting the hot/ground reversed indication?

Is it possible that you have a load connected in series with the security light that is causing a voltage drop? If not this, then I would start by visibly tracing the wire looking for a problem and look at all connections.

From what I am understanding you are saying, it could be a bad switch/receptacle. I would replace that and see if that corrects the problem.

To me it sounds like you have a lost neutral rather than an open neutral. A loss neutral is where your neutral becomes disconnected or has a poor connection before your breaker panel. I have a separate video on lost neutrals. I would suggest you check the voltage before and after turning on a fairly heavy load such as a microwave or something like that. This test works best if you turn on a heavy 120-V load, rather than a 240-V load. If you get a voltage change of say 10 to 20 volts, I would definitely say you have a lost neutral. You did say that you have measured low voltages. With a lost neutral you should have some outlets reading high voltage, as well. With this lost neutral, your high and low voltages should add up to somewhere around 240 or 250 V. In other words, if you have low voltage of 90 V, for example, you should have a voltage on the other leg of your electrical service of about 150 V. If you do indeed only have low-voltage everywhere and no high-voltage anywhere, then the problem is not a lost neutral. I would suggest contacting your electric company at that point. I will definitely be interested to hear the final results of what you find. If you want to comment again and give me further details after you do this additional testing, that would be great.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 Thank you for the reply! Let me see if I can explain this a little bit better: Last year I started noticing some fluctuations with my fans; sometimes they would go too slow and sometimes they would go too fast; all my major appliances were working fine at the time. I called the power company and they checked things on their end; they replaced a couple things and also said some mice got into my outside breaker box. After that, my power was working fine for the next 9 months without me doing anything. Last month, I came home from an appointment, I heard my refrigerator kick on, and at the exact same time, a surge protector behind my TV fried/started smoking. I changed surge protectors, it fried the second one. I started having fluctuations with fans again, and when I turned on my skillet, it blew an overhead light bulb. The electrician came over, tested the outside breaker box and the inside breaker box; all readings were correct. I proceeded to show the electrician that I was having fluctuations in power; the electric weed wacker was either not hardly turning or turning way too fast. The outdoor receptacle was getting a high reading, at times. The electrician suggested that I replace the outdoor breaker box and the 100 amp breaker. I said ok, ordered the parts, but the electrician never came back. Without me doing anything, the electricity seemed to be working normal again for almost a month. I hooked up a couple surge protectors to be on the safe side. I'm patiently waiting for the electrician to return... Now to the present, or just a couple days ago, I get woken up by my fan kicking into overdrive. I go out to the kitchen and turn off the refrigerator. I turn on my Skillet and instantly my bedroom surge protector gets fried. The power company comes over, checks behind the outdoor meter, notices some corrosion, but the readings were coming back correct. My friend then took the volt meter, tested my inside breaker box but couldn't find any issues with the readings. All the receptacles are reading around 120, but none of the receptacles will run anything more than a fan or a light. So now, I have no refrigerator or skillet to cook with. My well pump and hot water (heat pump) seem to be working okay, thank goodness. I think that explains it. I'm not very familiar with these types of things, and it feels very foreign to me. I would appreciate more of your advice, if you don't mind. You look and sound very scientific. The experiments look cool, I just can't understand them completely. Thank you sir!

It may not be a bad splice. It could just be a damaged wire. Even so, back in the day, I don’t think they were putting splices in walls, so the large majority of splices should be in the attic. I would think about the best you can do is use the procedure shown to isolate as closely as possible the location of the open neutral. Once you do that, I would verify that you have a good neutral in the attic that may be running down to the affected outlet. If you do have a good neutral, then the problem may very well be in the wall. At this point, the best thing to do may be just to fish a new wire to the “bad“ outlet.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 That's what I normally do. I abandon the K&T as much as possible, and I run new romex to the receptacles in question. The only problem is that sometimes the customer doesn't want to pay extra for it.

My first thought would be that all of the lights upstream of the disconnected neutral should work, while those located after the disconnected neutral will not work. This should help significantly in narrowing down where the neutral is disconnected.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 - I must have a different problem. Thanks for your reply.

I’m curious. Were you able to solve your problem?

@@morganinspectionservices3840 yes thank you. I had a neutral slip out of a wire nut at last switch box go figure.

So you’re sure it’s not at the breaker panel or at the outlet?

You can find them at any hardware store and probably even at Walmart. You should be able to find one for $10-$20.

I realize this is a very delayed response, but I did not see your comment. We are not getting a hot/neutral reverse indication on the tester. We are getting a hot/ground reverse indication on the tester. This is exactly for the reason that you describe. The tester sees that the hot and the neutral are at the same voltage, and that the ground is at a different voltage. This is a deficiency of these testers. When it sees that configuration, it calls it a hot/ground reverse. It assumes that the ground is hot and that the hot and the neutral are at 0 V. While in actuality, the hot and neutral are at 120 V, and the ground is at 0 V.

Yes, it is possible. The three light tester simply acts like three multimeters. You would just have to check the voltage between all three combinations of two slots on the receptacles. If you have proper voltage between the hot/ground and the hot/neutral slots, then this indicates a properly wired receptacle. When your tester shows voltage between the neutral and ground, and between the ground and hot, then this is the same as the hot/ground reverse indication on the tester.

Yes. I would say that is correct.

Wouldn’t that be nice!!!

The ground should never have any voltage on it, unless there’s a problem with the wiring.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 I found a break in the ground put my meter from one side to the other and had 48v in-between .

Yes. Switches can be part of the problem.

It’s typically called a receptacle tester, or a three-light receptacle tester.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 thanks

Glad it was clear.

Switches can be part of the problem as well.

And the fact that he said at 1:05 the Neutral had 120V on it ... I use a volt-meter to test my outlets. H to N = 0V H to G = 120V = open Neutral OR H to N = 120V H to G = 0V = open ground

I definitely don’t recommend that method. lol

Brother... I will like any readings you do for study because that was super smart stuff 😊... informative

That’s correct. I showed how to narrow down the location of the open neutral. There’s no way for me to cover every possible cause of an open neutral. It could have come loose from one of the receptacles. A rat could’ve chewed through the wire, I suppose. A nail could have gone through the neutral and opened it up. Once you narrow it down between two receptacles/outlets, you’ve just got to start following the wire and checking connections and things.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 Well you DID have a setup there, you COULD have created an open somewhere to track down and show how you tracked it down. Would not take long between 2 outlets ...

@@ACommenterOnRU-vid That’s exactly what I did in the video. I created an open neutral between the first and second receptacles and showed how to isolate it between those two receptacles. There’s not much more I can do to show how to find it inside a wall other than to say what I said towards the end of the video. Are you suggesting I create an open neutral on an actual outlet in my home and then show how to track it down? If that’s what you’re suggesting, then yes, I could have and still could do that.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 What you did and what you showed where the actual open was is a different story. You said your open was between the 1st and 2nd outlet. THATS IT ... You didn't find the exact open, it could have been AT the socket or in the wire itself between the two sockets due to rodents or corroded or loose wire nuts ... What you did in your video was isolated the open between 2 points, not actually physically finding the open. Your title said how to FIND a disconnected N, you didn't find it, you isolated it between 2 points. You never showed the actual OPEN N anywhere ... What you SHOULD have done was opened the 2 sockets to expose the open N and say, HERE IS MY OPEN whether it was at the socket connection or inside the wire itself ...

@@ACommenterOnRU-vid You are talking about splitting hairs. Get real, You Tube. Btw, what an appropriate name you have... 😂

It has 120 volts on it when the drill is plugged in and the trigger is pulled. I didn’t want the neutral wire becoming live while still exposed, so I put the wire nut on it in advance.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 Well thats NOT what you said in the video and the drill was NOT plugged in. You said the N has 120V on it BEFORE you plugged in the drill so you gave out a false statement. You could have disconnected the N and not get shocked because it does NOT have 120V on it ... And next where you going to plug in the drill and turn it ON and touch that N to get shocked while recording ?? NO ...

You either don’t understand or you like to argue. I’m not going to argue with you or explain it further to you. Goodnight.

@@morganinspectionservices3840 I don't understand that you made an incorrect statement in your video ??? No i understand 100% that you made an incorrect statement and you refuse to correct yourself but want to blame ME for your mistake ...

I just listened to it, and it sounds fine. It’s had 8000 views and no one has complained about the volume, so I’m not sure what happened when you watched it.

good way to ruin a wire

@@ilovemyevo556 And have a bit of excitement in the process.