A couple of days ago ,,one circuit in my kitchen,, that feeds the ignitors on the gas stove, the outlet for the toaster, outlet for the coffee pot, and the outlet for microwave went out. I finally got to it and after using my GRT 500 Circuit Tester in each of the outlets,,,the lights say there is a HOT/GRD REVERSE condition,,,??

 How could that happen if none of the outlets have been disturbed in years? Is it possible that an outlet has failed internally and shorted from the hot to the ground,,,???

With EVERYTHING disconnected, plug a light bulb into each plug one at a time.. Everything should be OK, (unless one PLUG FAILED.)... You might want to also look at each plug to see that all the BLACK wires are on the same side of each PLUG.

Your breaker is probably 20 amps on a 12 gauge wire... Your toaster pulls 12 amps, your coffee pot pulls 8 amps and the microwave pulls 8 amps... add a light bulb or two and you COULD be overloading the circuit if you use two of the LARGER appliances at the same time..

It would not be unheard of to have a duplex plug for a toaster to FAIL after 20 years of use... Constant high amp draw, even tho less than 20 amps can take a toll on plugs.

 Hey Steve,,Many Thanks for jumping on this issue for me!! 

There are four outlets along that wall.  The farthest east one usually is not even used, The next outlet is where the toaster WAS but has not been used in years. The igniters for the gas stove is on that outlet. Next in line is where the coffee pot is plugged in. Next in line is the Microwave. The outlet where the toaster USED to be sounds like the culprit,,,??

 I did replace the East most outlet and was wired correctly and will pull the other 3 tamarrow to replace them and post the results tamarrow. Thank you,Steve,,!!!

I hope those aren't all on the same breaker.

By some chance you got one of those GFCI receptacles in the line up of wall outlets?

Had one of them go bad and had to replace it then everything worked fine after that.

 Hi Shameless,,,,How are you these days?    Are you doing OK,,?    Here's hoping you are feeling great,,,,,,

 OK,,since I'm done with the niceties ,,,,,,,,,,,

 Actually,,Shameless,,,the only'ist juice required for the stove is to provide about a half of an amp for the igniters,,,it's a propane stove,,,,thank you very much

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How's the combining going,,,?

Have a neighbour with 'interesting' wiring in the kitchen....keeps asking me to replace the broken breaker.

It's one of those $$$$$$ two mini breakers in a regular breaker case, so 2 x 120 lines, same phase NOT a 'double' aka 220 breaker.

Turns out receptacle the toaster oven is on is the same as the fridge,so.....1/2 the breaker trips when toaster over is on AND the fridge decides to do a defrost cycle. THREE times , I've replaced the breaker (PITA..100 yr old house),told her 3 times 'get the kitchen rewired'. It'd cost less than the 3 breakers....

Next time ,one of her know-it-all sons can replace the %^&*&*& breaker. I got better things to do, like watch paint dry on the D-14s rear blade in my warm garage !

re: those ‘double switch’ breakers are allowed here in Texas, to a point. I think the limit is 2 of those per panel,

wow, neighbours panel is 99.44% FULL of them 'double switch' breakers !

There's far more $$ in them than cost of a bigger box, sigh.

Hi Joe-

So... if you're certain the receptacle was wired right previously, and it is INDICATING 'hot ground reversal' on your tester, there's one of two common things that will cause this-

One is that the tester's internal circuit has a failed diode or shorted winding (it's a toroidal transformer that works like a 'hybrid ring'...)

Or the other is that you've got an open neutral on that receptacle's circuit.

Just to make certain though, that it's not some other weird thing... make certain you have EVERY OTHER receptacle clear of an appliance.  It IS possible for you to have a device connected (particularly one with a 'modern' Switch Mode Power Supply in it, that is causing your circuit tester to THINK there's something goin' on, that isn't actually goin' on.  Some 'green' type got it in his/her head that the TRANSFORMER was an 'evil' energy waster, so they mandated what became a change to Switching-Mode Power Supplies (SMPS), which are significantly more complicated, more dangerous, and every bit, and sometimes more wasteful, than a legacy type transformer.  When they fail, they are NOT our friends.

 Hey Dave Kamp It's good to hear from you,,!! ,it been a long time there Buddy,,,,!!

 I started to call you several times as I still have  your super secret cell number that I have had stored in a hermetically sealed jar wrapped in burlap to disguise it and buried in a 17 foot long trench along with seven other look-a-likes to throw off any unauthorized searches,,,,,,,

 This has been a "Lesson learned" project as I should have done the electrical myself to the kitchen addition those many years ago,,,,instead,,I opted to "let" a "Friend" do the work as I was still working many hours per week,,and he came somewhat "recommended" but one never knows,,,,??

 Anyway,,,my instructions to him were to just "relocate"  the 6 receptacles on "Existing" south wall to the "new" south wall of the kitchen addition. (Sounds simple don't it?) 

 After not being able to figure out just exactly "WTH" he did,,,I started to cut inspection holes in sheetrock to follow the circuit for the wall receptacles and  am still scratching my head WHY he ran the wire to the underside of house,,,,?? Now,,this fellar is known to favor the use of wire nuts to complete a circuit,,SO,,who knows?? 

 I'm thinking you hit the nail on the neutral and I have an idee that the issue is under the house where a wire nut, after 25 years ,,has worked loose and causing the neutral to come and go,,,,??

 I finally had to hollar,,"Calf Rope" and call a sure enough local electrician and THAT is what he surmises also. So, after locating both ends of the under house section of wire,,, we cut both ends loose and run a "Temporary" til I get some of the "wire in conduit" and run along the baseboard to replace all that meaness under the house,,,,

 I did go ahead and replace the 6 receptacles with 20 amp ones,,so should be good for another 30 years,,,,,,

 A GREAT many THANK YOUS to all who helped,,,!!!!

been following this thread since I am an unschooled electrician.

Yep had one of those wire nutz get loose on a common out in the barn.

twas a nut roll but I found it. 

Lots of electrical problems can be traced back to 'open neutrals'  If one HAS to use wire nuts, I recommend that they make sure the wires are really clean, properly twisted, ends clipped square, run 'em down tight (and make certain the wires continue twisting) then tape the WIRE (so it cannot untwist), then dunk the nut in liquid sealant (to fill the wire nut completely), and once it's set up, wrap tape over it again...

Once oxygen starts it's chemical orgy with the wire, corrosion will form between the conductors, causing resistance, which generates heat, which melts wires...

How's the song go... "Loose Wires... Cause Fires"... ;-)

https://youtu.be/Jq9r4-xvunk?si=_STciGAgXd25AES9" rel="nofollow - https://youtu.be/Jq9r4-xvunk?si=_STciGAgXd25AES9

 Well, Dave Kamp,,even tho I feel like we did isolate the suspect "shyster type" work that that guy did under the house, I STILL wire nutted the hot and neutrals and I made sure them wire nuts were screwed onto the wires as tight as could be tightened and then used about a 1/3rd of a roll of electrical tape and wrapped em up good,,,,"Maybe", one day I might get curious enough to crawl under the house just to see what he did,,,BUT,,,,BUT,,,don't nobody take any wagers on That any time soon,,,,

 Again, fellars,,,Many Thanks for all ya'lls help,,,,!!

 Good to hear from you, TBone,,!!

some in the photo are a little excessive.. but this is the idea..

Steve's illustration is the accepted code and trade practice.  My work usually only involves about a dozen wire nuts, so I don't carry one, but electricians on my jobsites frequently carry wire nut tools that fit into their impact drivers.

I'm frequently incensed by electricians who cannot take the time to read my wiring diagrams, and in ignoring them, they do exactly what we DO NOT want them to do... placing wire nuts in pull boxes below the surface of my scales.  We identify that all connections are done in one place ABOVE ground level... alas, they put wire nut connections below surface, and when moisture accumulates (and it ALWAYS does), the wire nuts are the first point of destruction.  Being a Machine Tool Application, we use stranded 10AWG service conductors, and the unfortunate character of stranded wire, is that it is highly susceptible to water ingress by capillary action.  Once moisture comes in contact with the bare conductors (at the base of the wire nuts), it's drawn rapidly up through the wire towards the building (several hundred feet away) and cause oxidation to occur in a conduit, in the trench, underground, where it is not detected until they corrode into a big long green resistor, melting it's insulation, and shorting to other conductors.... or worse yet, becoming an 'open neutral', granting us a shock hazard somewhere.

To prevent this, each wire nut I install gets inverted, and submerged in sealant, thus, the exposed wire surface within the wire nut is totally sealed out... then I twist the group again, and wrap them tight in 3M Super 88.  It isn't perfect, of course, but it's a whole lot better than the ones that others have done less judiciously.

And Lars, you're right on re. excess wire counts in boxes... there's a reason boxes have a conductor limit... space to put stuff in is PART of that, the other part, is basic heat... current flow in conductors generates heat, and putting too much heat in a small box makes the 'fire protection authorities' a bit concerned.