You CAN Get SHOCKED by a Neutral Wire! This is How...

hey gang welcome back to the channel i'm paul with studpack in our last video in this series we had a lot of new people watch our video in this series so if you're one of those people welcome back and we sure appreciate all the support we're going to jump right into today's project but in in the last video in this series we poured this underlayment in this bathroom it's completely dry and it came out beautifully check this out now remember that our goal was flat our original goal was to be level but we couldn't do that and so now our goal is flat and you can see we're pretty close to level i mean it looks good but that's probably a quarter inch at a level over four feet so the width of the bathroom probably three quarters inch which is what those screws were showing us remember we removed all those screws and we poured this so that it's flat and this direction we're really good super happy with that i got in here earlier i removed the foam dams at each doorway we're going to give you a close-up of that one here in a minute and then i also use my buzz saw and i just went around the edges and i cut off the foam here we had several comments about whether or not i'm going to leave this so right here i'm going to remove it and fill that with thinset a lot of people recommended that to us but over here in the toilet area we're gonna have baseboard and shoe and it will cover it so i'll probably just leave it here so let's go over here and check out this lip where the dam was by the master closet door so see it's probably what a quarter inch thick here but then look how thick it is here probably 5 8 because we had a real low spot so the plan is there's our floor tile so we're going to ramp from the top of this wood to the top of our tile over our underlayment and you can see how little that bubble is off not a big ramp so you'll never i don't think you'll ever feel that walking in here so that was a good solution to that problem but today's project we need to do a little bit of electrical because we got to get this drywall up we need to get all the taping done so we can start painting in here so earlier i had all this taken apart i turned off circuit number 20 but then i got shocked by the neutral so a lot of people think you cannot get shocked by a neutral but actually the second worst shock i've ever received was from my neutral what was the first shock was it was the worst one so the worst shock i ever got i felt it for two days i got shocked doing plumbing work i was actually hooking up the ice maker on a refrigerator and that whole incident really changed the way i do a lot of things it changed the way i worked with electricity it changed the tools that i buy and i'm thinking about doing a whole video just on that because of how valuable it was so if you would like to see a recreation of that up until the point where i get shocked let us know in the comments and we'll do that for you it was a very interesting problem we still talked about it with my wife and it's a super important subject i really want to explain it to you very well so let's head out to the panel and get started on this electrical problem all right guys before we take this panel off i really want to stress to you the dangers of electricity it's mysterious you can't see it if you do see it it's pretty bad already right i have the utmost respect for electricians i got to work with some great master electricians if any of my kids wanted to know one trade they should go into i'd say be an electrician so this is not weekend diy stuff if you're not comfortable with it at all if you have any doubts please hire a certified electrician they spend years training and working in the field it's well worth the phone call so let's take this cover off all right guys we're out here at the panel and this is really a sub panel you can see that there's no means of main disconnect the main panel is on the other side of the house current code would require a breaker here to shut off this whole thing but it's on the other side of the house you'll notice that i came in here and numbered it the factory numbers are hard to read so i numbered it with a sharpie and panels are numbered in a specific way odds are on one side evens are always on the other you would never go one two three four five and then pick up on the other side this panel has 20 spots and there you go the last one is 20. these right here are called tandems they're called twins there's several names for them depending on where you live in the united states so this space has a has two breakers so it's 11a and 11b it's not 11 and 13 and 15 and 17. it's just like i have it labeled right there sometimes you'll find a panel upside down that's not wrong it's just the way that that electrician had to install the panel usually to meet code so here's our panel let's take the cover off now we used to remove panels the size of this door so we would always have one guy holding the panel in someone else removing the screws just so the panel didn't didn't fall not so much of a concern anymore i should have worn my new magnetic wristband most panel covers have a little edge on them but you don't want the weight of the panel on these breakers and this one does not have a ledge so a good thing to support it in the united states we have 240 volts across phases 120 volts from phase to our neutral and from phase to ground the black and the red is incoming power to this panel 244 volts the white is our neutral 122 and on our ground bus over here 122. so let's use these three cables coming into this connector right here as our example this one right here is on circuit 16a remember 2018 16a so the current that is traveling on this one returns to the panel on this neutral that's in the same cable now i know it's alternating current it goes back and forth so for purposes of this we're going to say it's traveling on this black to the load it's returning to the panel on this neutral so what happened to me i turned off the circuit for this wire it was returning on another neutral and that's how it shocked me so we're going to turn circuit 20 off and then go inside and check out what's going on in that electrical box i've removed the wire nut remember this circuit is off now circuit 20 feeding this box is off at the panel now watch what happens to the closet light when i remove this neutral see that lights on right lights off let me get my tester and check this out i've got 120 volts across neutrals so if anybody ever tells you that neutrals are safe to work with find another electrician now if you thought that was interesting check this out 120 volts from that neutral to ground these pipes are bonded to the ground in the panel probably at the main service so we're completing a circuit right there and if you thought that was interesting watch this do not try this at home now that closet light is on now watch off on why does that work because the electrons are coming from that light fixture into this neutral and they're looking for a way back to the panel or the ground they don't care where it is it can be through this pipe or it can be through you but it should be through a neutral so that's why we're here we're gonna fix that problem so let me put a cap on that to make it safe and then we're gonna untwist all the blacks and i'm gonna show you what's going on there alright again we turned off circuit number 20 which is feeding this box and we showed you that the neutral still has current on it but check this out i've got 113 volts on this black wire how can that be everything's off right yep now circuit number 20 for these led lights is off and i can make them come on look at that this is the kind of stuff you come across in remodels where you really got to know what you're doing that's why we stressed hiring electrician so let's show you what's going on here this is a very simplified version of what's happening in this box circuit 20 which we've turned off powers the bathroom lights here's the white neutral going back to the panel we've got a complete circuit circuit 19 which is feeding the master closet light is right here and there's your complete circuit here is where this circuit 19 and this circuit 20 are sharing the same neutral and them sharing this neutral is not okay does it work that they share the neutral sure it does but so does touching this black wire to that pipe the lights come on the electrons are just looking for a way back to the panel they're going to find a way nature always finds a way name that movie so let's show you what's happening we disconnected this neutral right here right that's gone so now the electrons cannot return to the panel so remember circuit number 20 is off but we've got current flow here and then it stopped because obviously we took the wires apart that's why we had 120 volts on our neutral and that's why when we touched a wire from this neutral to that pipe this light came on because we completed the circuit so why do we have current on this black wire well it's back feeding it can't go this way so now it's going this way it's back feeding through those lights those electrons are looking for a way back to complete the circuit so some of you may be wondering well whatever happened to the neutral for circuit 19. why did they have to share it with the neutral from circuit 20 well i found it so let me go show you where it is so this is the three-way switch to the entrance to the master closet so check it out what do you see in there i see a little naked copper yep there's our neutral that's the one we've been looking for and that's the one that should have been tied in to the closet light in that other box so we're actually going to run a cable and use that and wire it like it was supposed to be done so where are all our neutrals tied together it's right here so if i take that off and remove that that's going to solve all our problems in that other box let's go check it out remember we got 120 volts between this neutral and ground and it's gone and then we also had current on this one and it's gone because it's no longer back feeding let's go back over here those are our two travelers there's our neutral from the light it needs a home it's home is that loose wire in that box and we're going to connect them together right now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right now we do the same to the other wall above the other three-way switch and replace this with a piece of 14-3 all right we have all our drywall cut and all our staples removed there was only what jordan 5 staples yeah not too many five so we're using the old cable to pull the new cable i just left one conductor on each just like that and i was just taught to start wrapping with the lead wire the one that goes first and work your way downstream so that's ready to pull in the attic and i think that's where i'm headed we haven't been in an attic in a long time i know i kind of miss it i got it nice dude that was easy all right now we just hook it up patch the drywall alrighty guys we installed our three-way switches we separated the neutrals everything's working perfectly it wasn't that big of a job you saw how quickly we ran the cable and patching the drywall is going to take some time but we're doing that anyway and the diagnosis took some time but the main reason we did that was because we're going to be adding an exhaust fan over here and putting more load on that neutral so we really want to get that problem solved so that's done we'd actually like to show you more electrical videos but i've kind of been hesitant to do that for a number of reasons if you'd like to see us do more electrical kind of go into a deep dive let us know in the comments below we're trying to build a workspace so we can take you there and show you how it works behind the scenes right here everything's behind the walls and behind the sheetrock so we'd love to show you more detail on a workbench of how all this works and that's our goal so now that we have this electrical problem solved we can patch all these holes put up that piece of drywall skim coat all this and then we're ready for paint and tile what everybody's been waiting for especially the owners so if you like the video be sure to smash that like button for us drop a comment down below ask a question leave a tip we appreciate all the support subscribe if you haven't already and we'll see you on the next one [Applause] you

Channel: Stud Pack

Views: 250,803

Rating: 4.9369087 out of 5

Keywords: studpack, stud pack, self leveling floor, self leveling concrete, shared neutral, electrician, electric panel, two phase electricity, diy electricity, sub panel, main panel disconnect, bad electrician, backfeed, electric backfeeding, 120 volts, 240 volts, complete circuit, feeding wire through an attic, removing wire staples, buzzsaw

Id: yhFJzQB6_NM

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021