I removed the front panel off breaker box. The neutral wires (top 5 on right) were showing signs of having been hot. I unhooked white from neutral bar and put voltage meter on it. One lead to the white and the other leak to ground. There was 120v present on white(neutral) but when I hook it back to nuetral bar it does not blow breaker. Any ideas?
Most likely you have an open neutral on an outlet. Your reading the 120V from something that is plugged in down the chain of devises. This is also common to see the wires getting hot at the panel in this case.
Identify every outlet on that circuit, shut the power off, and check all the wires on the back of every outlet. Especially the push-in type. Those are notorious for failures like this.
Another failure that may have occured is over-loading an outlet. If the breaker is too large for the outlet, a large load may over heated the outlet without tripping the breaker.
I’m a GC, and would still turn to a qualified electrician for all the possible reasons of failure.
Thank you, i replace many of the outlets but not all. I will finish all of them. Still was ondering if it reads voltage on white why it doesnt trip breaker. breaker is only a 15amp.
They sell the voltage tester that plugs into an outlet and says if it’s wired correctly, a can’t remember how exactly, but that’s the danger of incorrect wiring it won’t trip the breaker.
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