Hot wire and ground wire have 2.3v

bill5498 · Dec 17, 2022

have a GFI outlet. I have not shut tge electricity off to the wires, they were live. I have the white neutral wire hooked up to the outlet. I have the ground wire hooked to the outlet. I a small zap when I touched the bare metal of the pliers and bare hot black wire. With the black hot wire not on the outlet I used a multimeter to see what was live and what wasn't. Using the leads, I touched the black hot that was not attached to the outlet and with the other lead, touched the white neutral wire that is attached to the outlet and the multimeter showed 120.03 volts. Now, I again touch the lead to the black hot wire that is still not attracted to the outlet and put the other lead onto the bare ground wire and the multimeter showed 2.3 volts. Is this normal?

Megawatt · Dec 18, 2022

bill5498 said:
have a GFI outlet. I have not shut tge electricity off to the wires, they were live. I have the white neutral wire hooked up to the outlet. I have the ground wire hooked to the outlet. I a small zap when I touched the bare metal of the pliers and bare hot black wire. With the black hot wire not on the outlet I used a multimeter to see what was live and what wasn't. Using the leads, I touched the black hot that was not attached to the outlet and with the other lead, touched the white neutral wire that is attached to the outlet and the multimeter showed 120.03 volts. Now, I again touch the lead to the black hot wire that is still not attracted to the outlet and put the other lead onto the bare ground wire and the multimeter showed 2.3 volts. Is this normal?

That’s telling me that you have no voltage on the black. Possibly getting a back feed but with its reading that low.

bill5498 · Dec 18, 2022

Megawatt said:
That’s telling me that you have no voltage on the black. Possibly getting a back feed but with its reading that low.

Hello, thanks for the reply. I have 120v when leads are on the hot (black) that is not attached to the outlet and the neutral (white) that is attached to the outlet. Now, when I put the leads on the hot(black) that is not attached to the outlet and the ground that is attached to the outlet, this is when I get the 2.3 volts.

davesparks · Dec 20, 2022

What voltage do you get between neutral and ground?

If you get a voltage around 120V then that would suggest that the polarity has been reversed somewhere.

bill5498 · Dec 20, 2022

davesparks said:
What voltage do you get between neutral and ground?

If you get a voltage around 120V then that would suggest that the polarity has been reversed somewhere.

Hello,
Thank you fir replying. When putting the leads on neutral and ground I get 0.0 volts. Now, that I have connected the black (hot) to the outlet I noq get 1.4v as opposed to 2.3v when the black was NOT connected and the ground was connected.