Neutral Hotter Than Hot?

protechplumbing

I finally found an electrician that would let me shadow him. While we were working today he told me something that I’ve heard from many other sparkys. He said that touching a neutral that’s coming from a heavy load will do more damage than if you just touched the hot. This has always puzzled me because it goes against every thing that I thought I knew about a circuit. Many a journeymen have said the same thing though, so I guess their must be something to it.

If I touch the hot, current flows from the hot to the ground thru me. I would be closing a circuit with the heaviest load there is, a short circuit. If you insert a load in between me and the hot, that can only add resistance a therefore increase voltage drop and decrease current flow.

Am I right?

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nap

the reason a neutral bites more is because for it to bite, you have to be in series with the circuit so all the current flow is going through you .

If you touch a hot wire, you are in parallel with any other load so what current flows through you is based upon the relative resistance of you and the other loads.

Skin has quite a bit of resistance so the current is generally less but not always.

mickeyco

Sounds like BS to me unless the neutral is shared (2 circuit, 2 breakers, same leg, 1 neutral) and overloaded. I await the experts answers.



.

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MALCO.New.York

Touch a Hot and you will draw "X" due to your resistance/conductance. Touch a Neutral, say on an 15 Ampere electric motor and you will draw NOTHING. But you will get the full end load PUSHED through you. The motor determines the amount of juice in the line not YOUR conductance.

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flashheatingand

I am familiar with electrical but certainly not a sparky. So, what I say should be confirmed by a certified electrician. Neutrals within one panel are shared. There is only one neutral bar on the panel, and they are all tied together. If you touch a neutral wire, you can draw some current from a circuit that you are not aware of. With the hot wire, you will pick up the current of one circuit, but not of the whole "house".

If you decrease the voltage (higher voltage drop), the current in the circuit will increase. That is why a lot of heaters use higher voltage. One could run say an electric furnace on 120v, but the amp draw would be quite high and large wires would be necessary to handle the load. It's not the volts that will kill you, its the amps.

The neutral is a grounding conductor. You must have a "ground" to complete the circuit. There is only one grounding conductor (neutral) and it is shared, I believe you can pick up the loads throughout the building. The purpose of the green wire ground is for safety. If any current is "drawn" through the green ground, the breaker will trip.

Malco, I will bet dollars to donuts that if you were to touch any part of the bare wire hot or neutral on a circuit that draws 15 amps, you will feel the love of electricity.

If I am incorrect, hopefully a real electrician will set me straight. I just hope what I said was clear and even more important, is correct.... Just trying to help

MALCO.New.York

Please re read my post to fully understand what I said. When you touch a Neutral that is under a load you are not drawing electrons, the Motor has drawn the electricity. It is now a "Push". The Motors load is now PUSHED through you.

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
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acrwc10

Your hopes are about to be answered.
The neutral is not a "grounding conductor" it is a grounded conductor, this is very important to understand the difference. The ground conductor should have zero current on it unless there is a fault ( short circuit or ground fault ) The grounded conductor is a phase conductor that has been intentionally connected to Ground. Since the earth has high resistance it is not a conductor, we only connect to earth to allow lightning and very high utility voltage to go to earth.
The grounded conductor in most installations is the neutral conductor of the system, although in some systems it could be a "hot" phase conductor like a 480 volt corner grounded delta system, not one you will see much if ever. When in a house or office building you will come across many "multi wire branch circuits "MWBC". These are multiple phase conductors "hots" that share one neutral conductor (when you look at the over head service conductors coming into a house you will see 2 "hots" and 1 neutral this is a Multi wire circuit) If you touch both phase conductors "hots" at the same time you will receive a good 208 to 240 volt shock. Since these 2 hots share the same "neutral" and are on different phases,they complete the circuit at the point the separate "hots" come together at the neutral, if you open the neutral and get in series with the hots "POW" you get the full voltage of the MWBC not just the voltage of one phase conductor. This is the "simple explanation" it is not completely accurate because there are different conditions and different systems that change some of what I have said.
In a nut shell plumbers should not open neutrals.

protechplumbing

I'm not sure we should be using terms like "push" or "pull". A hot AC pushes and pulls 60 times every second as polartiy reveses. The only thing I can think of that would make a neutral to hit harder would be inductance or capacitance such as a load with a motor.

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MALCO.New.York

Is that NOT what I said with appropriately place Quotations???????!!!!!!!!

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
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protechplumbing

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't understand how a capacitor or inductor would make any more current flow thru you. I would think the only way to make more current flow would be to increase the voltage.

Attached Thumbnails

     

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protechplumbing

that first one is wrong. Not sure how I came up with that amerage

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MALCO.New.York

When one gets hit with a standard hot wire in a standard American home, the breaker just about never breaks BECAUSE our bodies will only draw a certain amount of Juice and it is usually less than 15 Amperes.

When one gets hit on and end-load Neutral, the Device has determined the amount of draw and therefore has made the decision for your physical makeup as to how much you will now receive.

You are no longer only a "60 Watt bulb". You are now what ever the Device says you are.

HELL! I have often tested hot blacks by "slapping" the wire. Never bothered me! But I am NEVER "slapping" a Neutral that is POST DEVICE!

Now, REMEMBER! I am NOT a licensed Sparky. What I know is from EXPERIENCE and not books nor classes.

I am not wrong, but I may be explaining it improperly.

__________________
Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-cnizLDEE

walkerj

Heres a test:
Use wire nuts tohook up a portable flash light.
Open the grounded conductor.
Use a voltage tester across the two white leads.
You should read ~120vac.
Repeat the same un the hot.
Your results should be the same.
Now use an amprobe on just the white.
60 watt bulb should be about.5 amps
Now use the amprobe on the black
Same results

Make sense?

nap

Your personal body resistance, how you deal with being hit, where the power enters and leaves, how well you are grounded, parallel or series in the circuit, your question has so many variables it is not a practical question but MALCO is on the right track as to the answer you seek. The big difference is being in series with a circuit or being parallel in a circuit. If you are in series with either a hot or a neut, it won't be any difference. You will experience the same amount of current and voltage. If you are paralled with a neut, you will not generally experience anything. If you are parallel with a hot, you are getting current but it will be determined by many factors.

nap

Nevermind. I see what you are doing. The plumber is making this hard and I lost track of where I was at.
No, your test does not make sense. What are you trying to prove or state?

protechplumbing

yep

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protechplumbing

that the same amount of current is flowing thru the hot and the neutral.

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nap

did you read my entire post?

protechplumbing

I still don't see how a neutral will make any more current flow thru you. Series or parallel doesn't make any more juice go thru you. If you are grounded and touch the hot, the only things that will determine how much current flows thru you would be the voltage of the hot and how many ohms your body resists the voltage with (which depends on how good you grounded, how sweaty you are and how long the electricity has to travel thru your body)

Putting something with a resistance higher than the conductor in between you and the AC source would only LOWER the amount of voltage and consequent current your body would be subjected to.

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protechplumbing

yes

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