ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Cook top with neutral

Let me tell you something very disturbing.

A few weeks ago I changed employers. He sends me to a customer's house and tells me the receptacle for their gas range isn't working. Ok..so I plug my tester in and it says open neutral. So I cap the problem wire and re-feed the recaptacle. I'm in there for about 20 minutes. Later I see my boss at another job. He says I should have just used the EG for the neutral.(He uses more "colorful" language) I was like....huh? are you serious...?joke right? ..He says: We shouldn't even be the ones to fix it. That's the modular company's problem..they should be the ones to come fix it...who's gonna pay your salary to fix it...and so on and so fourth.

I'm like....I have never done that in my life...and i will never do that in my life..

I can't believe it. I have to get out of there. the crazy part is that the reason the house was built was because the other one burned down. I can't believe it. Can you?...keep in mind this is a guy who's been around.(ex union...supposedly).he's in his 60's. his son has been doing electrical work for (supposedly) 10 years and has no license.

crazy. just crazy.

on a funny note. his son was acting "the man" one day in front of the cabinet guys. he pulled me over and says:"see right here."...
pointing to the countertop receptacles....
"see right here...technically you should have another outlet here..."
I go:"Article 210.52 C2 reads:....measured horizontally...blah blah blah ect"
he tries to cover his ass:"the ispector this the inspector that"
I go:"he doesn't know how to read...blah blah blah."

I can't believe it. Nothing shocks me anymore(no pun intended)

[This message has been edited by Clydesdale (edited 04-21-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Clydesdale (edited 04-21-2005).]

when i try to edit my post, i encounter HTML in my post...pretty annoying.

Some cooktops have no metal just all glass top, non conductive, but still a good idea to run the neutral.

Something related but sort of opposite -
Though we are a commercial/industrial contractor I have seen (in years past) many of the following. Older houses that were wired with old cambric coated romex that was a two wire cable, no grounding conductor. Many of the older journeymen I worked with (I was a helper) would jump the neutral to the ground allowing a standard grounding receptacle to be installed where there were only 2 wires. Must have worked because I don't recall there ever being any problems or callbacks. (or fires either) I have not seen or done and residential work in 25 years but I do remember that! Has anyone see this before?

Welcome to the forum lear

There are a few problems with using the neutral as the EGC.

The first one that comes to mind is that if the neutral becomes broken any grounded appliance on that circuit will end up with an energized enclosure.

Lear, I have seen that "bootleg" ground many times, usually done to "fool" the inspectors plug in tester.
Biggest danger of this was illustrated in a situation I found a few years back. Someone had jumped the neutral to ground on a receptacle. Someone else had tapped the circuit upstream but had reversed the hot and neutral when putting things back together. End result was a hot ground! Very scary!

Thanks iwire - Looks like a great board!
Isn't it odd that it ""fooled" the inspector every time? I remember the inspectors showing up, shooting the breeze with the boss and signing the permit after checking the work. In hindsight, I can't help but think the inspectors must have known that this was going on. Being green I just though this is the way it was done. When I was the 4th yr helper I would tell the green guys; "this is the way we do it." I'm guessing there are 1000's of older houses around the country where this was done.
Bill

[This message has been edited by LearJet9 (edited 04-27-2005).]

[This message has been edited by LearJet9 (edited 04-27-2005).]

Those little three light plug in testers are _quite_ limited.

They simply measure voltage between the three pins of a standard receptacle. If you have voltage from the 'hot' pin to the 'neutral' pin, and voltage from the 'hot' pin to the 'ground' pin, then they light up 'correctly wired'. A bootleg ground would give exactly the same indication. In fact, if hot and ground were reversed and you had a bootleg ground, you would get the exact same 'correctly wired' reading, in a _very_ dangerous situation.

There are testers that can detect a bootleg ground; they are much more expensive. For example: http://www.mytoolstore.com/ideal/ide05-05.html

-Jon

How about we do it right because we know the code and know the risks involved if we take shortcuts. The EGC is strictly for ground fault currents. The neutral is an intentionally grounded conductor used to carry inbalance and return voltage safely to ground. Do it right the first time and sleep well at night.