On 4/2/2010 11:12 AM mike spake thus:

On Apr 2, 11:58 am, Jack Hammer wrote:

On Apr 2, 2:45 pm, "Dave" wrote:

Question for the gurus. I just tested my housewiring (at the wall outlet)
and found that I have 120V AC between the hot and return, only I can't tell
which of the top two "slots" is hot and which is return. They both show
59.4 VAC with referrence to the third (GND) terminal, on the bottom. Huh?
Anyone have any idea what might be going on with my house wiring? It's an
old house, built in '49 or '50, and has had numerous pieces added and
modified. I was in the attic once, installing the wiring for a bathroom
outlet, and got bit by the *white* wire, which should have been my first
clue something was wrong. When I asked someone else about that though, was
told that it might be normal, depending on what had been put in place. :/

Are you absolutely sure it is 59.4V and not 59.4 millivolts?

Agreed. AND I'd double check with an analog meter to rule out
inductive ghost voltages.

It's getting *really* annoying hearing this same answer regurgitated
every time someone reports a problem involving weird voltages in their
home's wiring.

One would think that a DMM (digital multimeter) is a totally unreliable
instrument, prone to erroneous measurements due to cosmic rays and pixie
dust.

This is not the case. I just measured my unit's voltages with my DMM.
Got 122-something volts between hot and ground, and 0.0 between neutral
and ground, just like you're supposeta.

The OP has some screwy wiring, perhaps a floating ground, maybe
something else.

(This isn't to say that it isn't *possible* for a DMM to misread due to
stray capacitance or induced voltages, but it is nowhere near as
terrible a problem as you hear here.)


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