On Dec 10, 2:44*pm, Salmon Egg wrote:
In article ,
*"John Grabowski" wrote:

*Granted. *However the OP has failed to post any details. *He didn't say if
the fixture was working correctly or not. *He didn't say how he came to find
the voltage discrepancy. *He didn't say why he changed the light fixture. *I
just made some assumptions that everything was working fine and he was just
playing around with his volt meter. *If the OP cares to furnish more details
then perhaps my response will be different

That *is why I thought that OP was out of his league. Apparently he
thought so as well because he hired a presumably competent contractor. I
think that showed good sense on a situation that many people would feel
falsely competent to handle.

A few years ago, I hired a competent electrician to track down and
replace a poorly connected neutral conductor. I had diagnosed the
problem but had not pin-pointed where it was. That turned out to have
been a good decision because he was experienced in such matters and I
was not. I am confident that I could have located the problem but it
would take ten times as long and I would not know the best way to
correct it.

Bill

--
Private Profit; Public Poop! Avoid collateral windfall!

Oops I missed the post that the OP found the open ground, but I have
seen all kinds of wierd readings on normal wiring if you use a DVM.
Also neutral problems scare me more than working on hot leads. Thats
because hot leads always simply terminate and their breakers are 1 to
1. So you would have to consiously put your body "in series" with the
current flow even if you are dumb enough to not trip the breaker.

Whereas neutrals travel all over the house, so if you open a wire cap
on a bundle of neutrals that you find in a box somewhere, even though
your breaker is tripped on the circuit you think is correct, that
bundle may still have some current flow from a different branch that
is live. So if you happen to separate and grab two of those neutrals
as you remove the wire cap, your body immediately is put in series
with a load carrying wire, not good. Being in series with a neutral
carrying 10 amps is instant death.

Neutrals actually require more safety caution than working with
specific hot leads especially when unbundling wire caps to insert
another pigtail.