Chased a phantom ground fault for 4 hours yesterday

Turned out to be a nick in the wire inside a junction box I'd already checked twice. Anyone else spend way too long on something that simple?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_webb61d ago

Yeah my buddy had the exact same thing happen with a dryer outlet. He beat his head against the wall for three hours, swapped breakers, checked every other box, and it was a little piece of wire insulation pinched under a screw. He about threw his meter through the window.

stellafisher1d ago

Three dollars and seventeen cents worth of wire nut was the culprit in my case, @ray_webb6. I spent two whole afternoons chasing a phantom voltage drop on a kitchen circuit, checking every junction box and switch. Finally found a single strand of copper barely touching the ground screw in a backstabbed receptacle... it was enough to make a meter act weird but not enough to trip anything. I've started taking photos of every screw terminal before I touch anything now, just so I can double check later when I'm losing my mind.