![]() So they're both tied to ground because they're both designed to provide a return path for the electricity. This is a safety feature designed to keep you from being shocked or electrocuted. For example if a wire in your stove broke and touched the metal case the ground wire provides a path for that electricity to use, otherwise you could run into a situation where you do something like touch both your stove and your sink and then YOU become the path for that electricity to take. The job of the ground wire is to make sure that stuff that isn't supposed to be electrified doesn't accidentally become electrified. This is important to the functioning of your electrical devices. The job of the neutral wire is to provide a path for the electricity to return to the box. As electrical faults go, this is one of the most dangerous ones you could possibly encounter in your home. But until you do, you should keep that entire circuit without power. This is a very bad scenario, because unlike the shocks you might get from sticking a finger in a lightbulb socket, THIS situation would result in electrical current flowing between two different parts of your body, quite probably crossing your chest.īottom line, you need to get an electrician in there. You wouldn't notice unless you touched them AND you were touching something with a path to ground, which could be a cable, a wet floor, another appliance, or a pipe. You should flip the breaker for the circuit containing the affected outlet.īear in mind, if devices plugged into the affected outlet (or, potentially, other outlets on the circuit) have a 'hot' chassis, you wouldn't necessarily notice even if you touched them. Either of those things could mean there are other lurking problems in your house's electrical system.Ī problem like this could affect all the outlets on the circuit. ![]() The problem you're having is quite likely due to either very old wiring that wasn't maintained well, or badly done amateur electrical work. Get an outlet tester (they're cheap) and go check all the outlets in your house. ![]() You should stop using that outlet immediately, and you should be suspicious of other outlets in your house. This is the type of electrical problem that DEFINITELY HAS THE POTENTIAL TO KILL SOMEONE. To be clear, this is a dangerous situation. If it's a three prong plug, then that could mean that the ground connection on that outlet is also not connected correctly. So, I'm guessing that this is happening with a device that uses a two-prong plug, not a three prong plug (since a three prong plug should keep this from happening). This is why some appliances have a ground connection in addition to the hot and neutral: if current from the hot wire isn't making it back to the neutral wire, the ground wire (connected to the metal frame of the appliance) gives it an easy path back to ground. If the connection to the neutral wire is "open" (not connected), that's dangerous because current might flow from the hot wire to ground by another path, possibly starting a fire or shocking somebody. Normally current flows between the hot wire and the neutral wire. ![]() The neutral wire is supposed to be the bigger of the two slots. So, as others said, I think this refers to a situation where the neutral wire in your outlet is disconnected.
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