From this, it soudns like you have an open neutral. The voltage in the
neutral is because some appliance is plugged in and turned on.

Remdnds me I had a surprise one time when I was workign on a circuit panel.
I'd taken the white wire off, to reroute it in the panel. I touched the bare
tip of the white, and got a tingle. Huh? Well, I was getting power through
the breaker and through an appliance.

There is a simple answer, that might very well solve the problem. You didn't
ask, and so I won't say.

--

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
www.mormons.com


wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi all,
One of my wall receptacles suddenly stopped working this morning. I
tested the bad one with voltmeter and found out that there were 120 VAC
between hot and ground, 0 VAC between hot and neutral, and 120 VAC
between neutral and ground. I live in North America and the normal
reading between hot and neutral should be 120 VAC. I removed the
receptacle and tested again on the wires directly and got the same
result. I also tested other receptacles connecting to the same breaker
but they were working. Worring there might be a short circuit, I shut
off the breaker and call the electrician.

Does anyone have the same problem like this before?
Did the neutral wire become hot, or did the hot and ground got
reversed?