How To Find Find Hot Wire Without Color Clue

[steveweaverca]

I know you made this 4 years ago, however, it helped me today. Thanks!

[Gagagou]

Hi, in the case where you have no clue which wire is neutral or ground, I don't get how you differentiate them as both, when probing with the hot wire, will give you 120V. Thanks for your help.

[originalfallinggirl]

Thanks so much. I’m finishing the wiring of my welding outlet and the guy who roughed it in left NO WAY to identify the hot and neutral. This is great!

[scotthair]

Used this today on some motion sensor switches and had to test the hot wire! Awesome. Thanks for the help, Josh. 🤙

[LinhVu-zfyw]

Thanks for the very helpful video. Just a little question, some of my electrical outlets have ground and some don't. For the cases when there's no ground wire, can I run an extension cord from an outlet with with ground and touch the ground with the black probe and then touch one of the wires with the red probe to find hot wire?

[THEJOEBECK]

You called the middle one both neutral & ground. 🤔

[nn]

There is two facts we have to accept:
1) 3 wires having same colors, is a very bad thing, should never do that, if they got spray paint ont them, scrape off the paint to see their color
2) since ground and neutral is connected at the breaker panel, NO tool can distinguish neutral and ground, even the receptacle tester, which can be fooled when ground and neutral are connected at the receptacle. The tester will show "CORRECT" connection. Only visual inspection can tell.

[Odinb]

Found wires in the yard from an old sprinkler system. This came in very handy. Thanks.

[ralphpetry]

Unlike the Supreme Court of the Internet typing in their darkened basements in the two most recent comments, I say you nailed it! I have this exact scenario and was able quickly figure it out from your explanation. Thanks!

[isinet]

Same problem here. I rewired a gfci on bathroom wall bec it was reading "neutral & hot reversed." But then the bulbs blew out on vanity light & ceiling light. There's 3 wires to the neutral & 3 to hot/black wire on the vanity light fixture. Question: Testing as you did in video I should connect the highest V wire to the black/hot side of the vanity light, regardless of jacket color correct?

[americandowninbrazil]

Thanks for the video, Josh, but two things. How do I find out which wire is hot if I am ONLY working with two wires AND... next time you show the setting on the mulitmeter, please do a zoom in on the knob because we can not see the setting on your multimeter. It is red and small. Thanks and God bless from down in Brazil.

[vitaminb]

How the hell did you figure out which one is neutral and which one is ground????

[nn]

With the cable as shown in this video, you can identify which wire is which by doing continuity test. The prongs at the plug are:
1) the round one is GROUND
2) the small flat one is HOT
3) the larger flag one is NEUTRAL
Just check the connections of these 3 prongs to the 3 exposed wires.
However, if you only see the 3 exposed wires without seeing the other end. You can only identify the HOT wire, simply by using a circuit tester that glows RED when you put the tip near this wire. I do not see an easy way to tell which of the 2 remaining is NEUTRAL or GROUND.
In a home circuit, the resistance of these two wires is .... ZERO Ohms if wired correctly. But connecting these two wires here is a violation of NEC code !!!

[dosmastrify]

What about unlabeled 75yo wiring without a ground?

[garykaraz]

Need to know the wiring on the stereo for 2007 Chrysler Sebring

[RainToday]

What if you don't have ground, but only hot wire and nuatral how u find it then ?

[mlwee]

0.54 because we are pretty sure this middle wire is NEUTRAL.... I thought it be be GROUND instead

[jsubound]

What if I can’t identify my ground wire (idek if I have 1 cuz it’s not bare or green) and don’t have a ground screw, when I go to test the wires to identify them, if I mistakenly put my probes on the 2 hot wires (because the colors are off and I’m trying to see which is which) will I receive a shock?? Using a Fluke MM and I’m just trying to see which wires are what because I installed a new ceiling fan. I have (coming from my ceiling junction box) 2 white uncapped and 2 black uncapped. Help someone plz. It’s been 2 weeks now…😩

[sassylady]

What if I have no ground - just a black and white coming out of the same conduit? How to test for hot?

[realdevbro]

when Phase is connected to any other two wires (possible G and N) it shows high voltage. then it's just identifying which is G and which is N.