Loading…
14
Question about troubleshooting a phantom voltage on a 3-way switch loop
I spent nearly 4 hours yesterday chasing a 40-volt reading on a dead circuit in a 1978 split-level, only to find it was induced voltage from a parallel run in the same conduit. I kept thinking it was a bad neutral or a partial short, but my Fluke T+Pro kept picking it up. Has anyone else run into this with older cloth-wrapped wire, and what's your go-to method to confirm it's just induction before you start tearing into walls?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
patricia_wells4mo ago
Oh man, I feel your pain on that one. Four hours is rough but I've definitely been there too, staring at a reading that makes no sense with older wiring like that. The cloth wrapped stuff from the 70s can hold onto induced voltage like crazy, especially if runs are parallel. What I do now is switch my meter to low impedance or use a wiggy, that always kills the ghost reading and shows me what's real.
3