If the white wire is connected to the smaller slot on the outlet, then the outlet was wired backwards. The electrician will check the color of the wires feeding to the outlet.
Electronic equipment will still function fine.
Reversed polarity is a shock hazard only. I’ve heard that reversed polarity can cause damage to some electronic equipment, such as computers… but that’s not true. This can also happen with old table lamps that have exposed metal sockets.ĭamage to electronic components? No. If this happens while I’m lying on the garage floor working on my car, there’s a good chance that this could be the last shock I ever get. The socket is always connected to the neutral wire, so no big deal… unless the trouble light is plugged in to an outlet with reversed polarity. Shock hazard scenario #2: I’m using an old trouble light, and my finger accidentally comes in contact with the outside of the metal socket that holds the light bulb in place. Your mom was right when she told you to never do this. This means there is always electricity at the heating elements just waiting for some poor sap to stick a knife in, and that electricity will travel up the knife, through my body, and back to the earth. Reversed polarity, so the switch on my toaster is shutting off the neutral wire instead of the hot. Unfortunately, my toaster is plugged in to an outlet with I should be safe doing this, because the switch that controls the flow of electricity to the heating elements in the toaster shuts off the hot wire. Safe to stick a knife in the toaster to get my muffin. I look in the toaster and see that the heating elements are off, so I assume it’s Toasting an english muffin and it gets stuck in my toaster. Because the hot wire completes a circuit by coming in contact with the earth, if you touch a hot wire and you’re in contact with the earth (which is pretty much always), you’ll become part of the circuit. This wire can be any color besides white or green, but it’s usually black or red. The other wire doesn’t getĬonnected to the earth, and it’s called the ungrounded conductor, or hot wire. This wire is commonly referred to as the neutral wire, and it should always be white. One of these wires is connected to the earth, or ‘grounded’, so this wire is called Reversed polarity creates a potential shock hazard, but it’s usually an easy repair.Ī brief definition of Hot and Neutral wires: On a standard outlet, which is technically called a ‘duplex receptacle’, there are two wires that carry electricity. This happens when the hot and neutral wires get flipped around at an outlet, or upstream from an outlet. I know this is not the ideal solution but in a real world scenario is it what you would do.When I inspect houses where an amateur has been doing electrical work, there’s a good chance that I’ll find outlets with reversed polarity. My first thought is to sleeve the wires at the socket outlet so the sleeves represent the correct colours for the conductors, and reverse them around so that thay are in fact correct polarity. So it really isnt practical to rip out the cabinets, what would you do. No junction boxes under the kick boards and no cut outs in the back of the cabinets. The problem is this was in a kitchen and i think the spur was put in first then the kitchen because i cannot trace the spur connection back to any of the accessable sockets. So fair assumption that the other end of the spur where its taken off the ring has been wired in reverse. Did a visual check at the CU and it was wired correctly.
Took the socket outlet off the wall and the conductors are wired "correctly" but it is a spur. Plugged in the tester and low and behold the machine showed a reverse polarity on the socket outlet.
I went to a rented property today for a PAT test.
0 kommentar(er)
