[Novalug] generators/UPS

James Ewing Cottrell 3rd JECottrell3@Comcast.NET
Sat Aug 4 21:40:38 EDT 2012


On 8/4/2012 7:12 PM, Ed James wrote:

> I was working on a light fixture where (my bad) I didn't turn off
> the circuit breaker, but trusted that the off light switch broke the hot
> (black wire) leg so that no juice got to the fixture.  The reality was
> that some numbnut (*not* me) had wired the switch to break the
> neutral (white wire) leg.  Juice still got to the fixture, but didn't
> flow.  Until somebody stuck a screwdriver in the wrong place.
> Moral - don't trust somebody else's work.

Another thing I found out the hard way is that the white wire isn't 
always safe under some circumstances. It turns out that two commonly 
used circuits were wired to the same breaker, and I wanted to move one 
of them.

I move the black one first, but when I moved the white one, I touched it 
and got a shock. Evidently, something on that circuit was on, and that 
loose white wire was now black...and hot. Ouch!

JIM




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