Hot answers tagged circuit
They are not grounded, though may be GFCI protected. If they are wired off the load side of the GFCI, then they are GFCI protected. In which case they should be labeled with stickers that say "GFCI PROTECTED", and "NO EQUIPMENT GROUND ".
You know those coils are cheap, consumable, field-replaceable items. It's common for departing tenants to replace drip pans and coils that are too dirty to clean easily. The coil may have lost some of its insulation and developed a short to chassis. But generally they are not valuable enough to ask "why".
Anytime a dead wire runs parallel to a hot one, it will pick up phantom voltage. You can see it with a rather sensitive voltmeter like a modern DVM, but it won't do any useful work. In other words this is an issue with your voltmeter. Stick a dollar-store nightlight in each outlet and that will eliminate the phantoms. The bigger problem is this ...
Sounds like you have a Multi-wire Branch Circuit, so the breaker handles should be tied together, or a double pole breaker should be used. And each breaker should be on an opposite leg of the service, to avoid overloading the neutral. If only one breaker is on, then the other hot is floating. Which means a digital multimeter could measure anywhere from 0 ...
Tester101 nailed the question, so I'll cover another option. Depending on your situation, it is often possible to retrofit ground. Normally, wires in a circuit must be kept together for good reason. Ground is a special case, it can be routed separately from the other wires in a retrofit situation. That is because ground is not used to flow current ...
No, they are not grounded. Yes, they are GFCI protected (as long as they are on the LOAD side of the GFCI). You are allowed to protect older ungrounded outlets by GFCI protecting them, though it's still preferable (but more invasive) to actually get ground wires everywhere. If you have any 3-prong outlets without a ground, they must be GFCI protected and ...
Sounds like the coil is shorted and providing far less of a resistive heating path than it should be. It should be trashed and replaced as I don't think there is a way to fix that coil, unless you can specifically see the short between the two prongs that plug into the range.
Modern GFCI devices will not set if the LINE and LOAD are reversed. If there's power on the LOAD wires, the device will not (and should not) set. It sounds like the GFCI is working as designed. You're going to have to figure out how both circuits are wired, to determine if this is intentional or accidental. If it's intentional, you can simply cap one set ...
Given the large size of the conductors, I would use aluminum for this, specifically the new AA-8000 series alloys. Yes, aluminum has a bad reputation as a wire. But that only applied to the faulty AA-1300 alloys installed during the postwar housing boom, and even then to the small-gauge stuff where it was used instead of 12-14 gauge copper. 1300 is now ...
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