How Did This Work?

angus242

Did a kitchen remodel about a year ago. Customer called and wanted the mini pendants changed out. I ordered the new ones and went to install them.

Let me back up a second and say my electrician is awesome. Never had a single problem with him AND this house passed inspection...

Took down the 3 pendants and installed the new ones. Simple. Turned the power back on and now NONE of the lights work. WTF????

Took me about 3 hours but I figured it out. The circuit didn't have a neutral hooked up!!!! There was a home run to a 4-gang box and somewhere along the way, the neutral was missed. My question is how did the lights work in the first place?

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Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

480sparky

Original installation was using the ground as a neutral?

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Site : the area or exact plot of ground on which anything is, has been, or is to be located.
Sight : The power or faculty of seeing; perception of objects by use of the eyes; vision.
Cite : To mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example.

angus242

Conduit installation.

Neutral that was supposed to be for kitchen lighting was incorrectly connected to the dining room circuit. And not even on the correct phase either.

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Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

480sparky

I don't get it.

How does a neutral have a phase?

What was the original fixture's white wire connected to?

__________________
Site : the area or exact plot of ground on which anything is, has been, or is to be located.
Sight : The power or faculty of seeing; perception of objects by use of the eyes; vision.
Cite : To mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example.

angus242

OK, I'm NOT an electrician so my description is probably wrong.

I assume a phase is either side of the panel. If I'm wrong, sorry.

The kitchen light breaker was on the left of the panel. The dining room on the right. The neutral that was supposed to be for the kitchen was connected to the dining room circuit and was connected to the right side neutral bar of the panel. I was under the impression that if a circuit was on the left of the panel, the neutral needed to be connected to the neutral bar on the same side. That's why I hire an electrician.

Regardless, I'm wondering how the kitchen lighting worked if there was no neutral hooked to it. And furthermore, why it stopped working when all I did was change 3 lights, wire for wire.

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Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

Bubbles

We had an incident a few years ago where this lady lost power to three rooms in ranch. After about 5 hrs we figured out that someone wired the feed to the light in hall first and ran the neutral in series. with light. So, essentially everthing was fine until the bulb burned out about 1 yr after the house was built. Just like a xmas tree. That job I"ll always remember .

480sparky

Not busting ya here, but it is (generally speaking) wrong. "Phases", or 'legs' alternate in rows. The top two breakers are one phase, the next two down are the opposite phase. If it's a single-phase panel, the next row would be the same as the top. If it's a three-phase panel, the next row is the third phase.

So a single phase panel would be
A-A
B-B
A-A
B-B
A-A
B-B....

A three-phase panel would be
A-A
B-B
C-C
A-A
B-B
C-C........

There are some old 1-ph panels that do have all one phase on one the right and all the other phases on the left, but they're few and far between.

The only thing I can think of is while you were moving the wires around in a box, something (the neutral you needed) came loose.

__________________
Site : the area or exact plot of ground on which anything is, has been, or is to be located.
Sight : The power or faculty of seeing; perception of objects by use of the eyes; vision.
Cite : To mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example.

Bubbles

Was the old and new pendants 12v or 120v or both?

angus242

Everything 120V

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Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

angus242

Thanks for the education!

I was just happy I fixed it.

The necessary neutral was run to the 4 gang box from the panel but was not hooked to the neutral (white wire) going to the kitchen lighting. It was instead, hooked to the dining room leg. I figured this out by retracing how the electrical was run originally. Luckily for me, my electrician had the wire pairs taped together when they left the panel and when they appeared in the box. Once I figured out which colored wires went to what, I found there was no neutral from the panel hooked to the neutral going to the lights. When I fixed that, lights all worked!

__________________
Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

RJS3rd

I'm sill confused...

willworkforbeer

This happened to me yesterday, I'm changing out a front door in a rental unit and plug my compressor into the living room outlet. Turn the compressor on, nothing except the living room light comes on and the dining room light dims. It had been one of those days and I had already experienced the old blown-in attic insulation so this new problem went immeadetly into the not my problem file . Owners problem

BDB

Then my question would be, Why were YOU doing an electrical service call?

angus242

Easy there. Changing a light fixture is not a specialty service.
The question was why didn't the electrician or inspector catch it and how it even worked hooked up incorrectly in the first place.

__________________
Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

Celtic

That's 2 questions...I'll pick the one I want to answer:



Where does it say anything must actually work?

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