Always thought the cheap voltage testers were fine for residential, but a call in Kansas City changed my mind

I was checking a weird flicker in a 1970s split-level and my old $15 pen tester said the circuit was dead, but my Fluke T6-600 showed a ghost voltage of about 45 volts on the neutral. The old place had a shared neutral that wasn't bonded right, and that cheap tester would have gotten me zapped. What's your go-to tester for tricky old wiring like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

hannahs454d ago

That ghost voltage story sounds like a one in a million fluke. A decent non contact tester and a simple solenoid ticker have been good enough for decades of residential work. Spending hundreds on a fancy meter for house calls is overkill, just double check with your meter on known live wires first.

paigep204d ago

My buddy in Chicago almost got zapped last year because his old ticker gave a false negative on a backfed circuit. Ghost voltage might be rare, but induced voltage from bundled romex is actually pretty common in modern homes with all the smart wiring. A basic meter can't always tell the difference between that and real live voltage, which is a real problem when you're trying to be safe. Relying on tools from decades ago doesn't make sense when the houses we're working on have changed so much.