Spent 4 hours tracking a ground fault on a simple lighting circuit

Honestly, I thought it would be a quick 30 minute fix. New construction house, basic 15 amp lighting circuit, nothing fancy. I kept testing the same three junction boxes over and over, couldn't find where the neutral was nicking the box. Turned out it was a tiny screw poking through a wire nut in a j-box behind an attic access panel I missed. Ngl, wasted a whole afternoon on that one stupid detail. Has anyone else had a hidden ground fault take way longer than it should?

2 comments

2 Comments

ben4026d ago

Actually a nicking neutral isn't technically a ground fault since it has no path to ground, it's just a shorted neutral.

sageburns6d ago

Hold up @ben402, if that nicked neutral is touching anything metal in the box or the ground wire, it damn sure has a path and that's a ground fault. Short circuit or not, if it's dumping current where it shouldn't be, the code and most meters are gonna call it a ground fault every time.