Question about a weird voltage reading in a 1920s house basement

I was troubleshooting a flickering light in an old Seattle basement and my meter showed 87 volts on a circuit that should have been dead, which made me double-check everything with a non-contact tester first from then on.

3 comments

3 Comments

skyler_jackson2712d agoTop Commenter

What was the non-contact tester reading?

morgan.rose12d ago

You asked about the non-contact tester reading. Mine kept going off near an outlet but showed nothing on the wires themselves. Turns out it was picking up the low voltage from an old phone line buried in the wall right behind it. Those testers are so sensitive sometimes, you know? I had to trace the whole circuit to figure that one out.

violar3512d ago

Oh man, that makes total sense. I read a forum post once where someone's tester was going crazy because of an old doorbell transformer hiding in the attic. Those things can pick up the weirdest stray voltage, like from cables that aren't even live anymore. It's kinda spooky how they react to stuff you'd never think about. Makes you double-check everything before you trust a simple beep.