Spent 5 hours tracking down a neutral issue in a 3-way switch setup

Had a customer in Austin whose lights kept flickering randomly, turned out the neutral was shared between two different circuits but the splice was buried behind drywall nobody wanted to open. Anyone else run into hidden neutral problems that took way longer than they should have?

3 comments

3 Comments

emerymoore1mo ago

Yeah nah I had a buddy spend a whole Saturday chasing one of those hidden neutrals once.

laura_knight541mo ago

Those floating neutrals will make you pull your hair out, always check your splices first.

oliviabennett1mo ago

Floating neutrals are the absolute worst. What ended up working for me was just going back to the very first junction box I touched and checking every single wire nut by hand instead of just looking. Found a loose ground that was sharing a splice with a neutral, total nightmare but the fix was just tightening that one connection. Makes you wonder how many little things like that get missed on a quick once over.