In a new house I've been wiring I came across the following problem...
I was swapping some breakers around in the panel when I disconnected a neutral from the the neutral bar and I realized that the wire was energized. After testing voltage to this wire I read 120v to ground, minimal voltage to L1, and 240v to L2. I did some troubleshooting and found if I turned off the breaker to the circuit it shared the wire was no longer energized. next I pulled out all the plugs a switches on this circuit to check for a loose wirenut, scarred wire, and incorrect wire terminations on devices. Everything looked fine.
At the panel I retested to see if there was any change. there was, now from the problem nuet. to ground i read 14.6v, from L1 to the problem nuet. was 106.9v, and from L2 i got 135.1v. At the main lugs it all tested fine at 120v/240v.
the next step I took was to go to the outlet where where the homerun was first connected and disconnected the HR from the rest of the circuit. At the panel nothing had changed with a retest of voltage from before. also I did a continuity test between the black and the white and there was none.
In the attic I found the wire and began to inspect it. I found a spot where the insulation installers drove a staple into my cable. I pulled out the staple, stripped back the outer sheathing about 4" in each direction from the impact point, and seperated the conductors so they were no longer in contact. So I figured I had found the problem. How wrong I was. At the panel I retested again and still no change from my last reading.
1)What would cause the funky measurements of voltage that i have of 106v, 135v, and 14.6v?
2)Why wouldn't my problem have been resolved with removing the staple and seperating the wires from contact?
3)How come I never read continuity between blk and white with the staple in or out?
4) Could the cable have gotten damaged futhering into the wall where I cant see from the staple I found?
Any ideas? Suggestions????
Thanks!
