How To Find A Hot Wire | Identify the Hot or Line Wire Using a Couple Cool Tools

Great video. Clear and precise description of how to test for which wires are hot. I'm installing new switches today and until I watched this video, it wasn't clear to me which black wires were load and which were line. Two Thumbs Up!!

Men are amazing! Great Builders, creators!! Teachers🎉

I have had 3 Klein testers, never a problem. My very first tester was a commercial electric brand, and it burned me the first month I had it. Buy quality for this kind of stuff, I believe it helps.

This is a horrible way to do this and a safety hazard for you or anyone in the house. If your finger slips you would touch the wires and get shocked. Don't ever do this. Put caps on the wires and use a non-contact voltage tester. Or use a Waygo connector and cap all the wires with the power shut off. THen power it on and test it through the waygo connector (it has a built in test port hole)

Informative, but takes a lifetime to get to the point. Shorten up the videos.

Helpful video for sure, but I want to confirm something you said in the video, but did not demonstrate. My 1960's apartment boxes have no ground wire. I was told the metal boxes, conduit pipe, and BX cables are grounded by default, given the way the electrical was laid in my building. I have red and black wires in some of my switch boxes. If I want to test which wire is hot, I need to place the black probe to touch the metal box, and then use the red probe to touch each wire. Whichever wire indicates 120v on the meter, that's the hot wire. Do I have this correct?

This was GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much.

This was very helpful and clear, thank you!

Thank you

Turn the switch off.

Put your thumb on the yoke (Mickey mouse ears looking thing), then touch the screws on the switch with your finger (on the same hand, that part is important) 1 at a time. The one that makes your hand feel funny is the hot wire.

Don’t do that if your hand is really sweaty, or if you are in a commercial setting.

Okay, don’t do that unless you understand why.

Or just don’t do that at all, way safer, but slower.

Another great video

Are you testing with power on at breaker or off?

Trust me, you'll know when you found the hot wire 😉

For a single pole switch does it even matter if the hot wire is mounted on top or bottom switch location?

I learnt a lot today. Thank you for taking the time to explain in simple detail. I appreciate it.

I simply use my wife to hold on the wires. When she swears, I know that she's hot.

Which meter/tester is a better inexpensive type that can be used in almost all scenarios?

Non-contact voltage testers can also sense hot wires through Romex sheathing but not well, if at all, through the old 60+ year old type of sheathing that is covered in some sort of woven fabric type material. Even a high end Fluke tester barely lit up when I was tracing the path of a circuit. If you’re dealing with old cables, verify your voltage testing with some other method.

this video was very very helpful, thank you so much!!!

Ive done the multimeter test and ive stumbled upon a case in which none of the black wires would give out a reading. (single pole) i tried grouding with the ground wire and also with the metal outlet case. Any ideas whhy none of the wires have a reading? there are no issues with the light switch...not sure why this is hapening.

Nicely done, not overly technical or talky. Could you update this with a view to the many newer designs of switches and outlets? Leviton (and probably other makers) have obscured the actual connections so it's hard to test once you've seated a switch! Any way around that problem when swapping out older switches or receptacles?

Why is one of the black wires painted white?

Hello and thinks for sharing your knowledge. I have an old house that was built in the 50'S with the two prong receptacles and someone put in the 3 prong receptacles but they are test for open ground. They have no ground wire in the box. After putting in a gfci receptacle it tested for open hot. So I thought i reversed the blk wire the hot wire to the load and not the line. Still read for open hot . then I swapped the neutral wires around. Now im lost. When I test the wires with a multimeter it backlights red and I get 117.2 Volts and the other blk wire gives me a wired number like 9.679 or something. But the green button on gfci is lit up. I've read you can ground the receptacle box to the grn nut on the gfci. Please help. I need to get this up and running to feed the daisy chain.

Thanks for reading this I know your very busy. Once I find the hot wire, what about the neutral. Are they hot wire specific. Before I took off the 3-prong outlet, it was testing for open ground. They all are testing for open ground because someone just hooked up 3 prong receptacles to a two prong setup. Now that I put in a gfci its testing for an open hot but the little green light next to the test button is lit up. The gfci comes tripped and because the wires are still off or I need to ground the grci, It wont reset.
Just stuck...

Does it matter which neutral wire I use in place of the ground. Could I touch something metal to give ground just for the test?

Clear and concise. Thanks.

Do you have a video,, that has a light switch that can also control the receptacle, for off & on switch??

Thanks so much for how you explained everything. I'm a first time home owner and have had to learn just about everything by myself. I watched at least 4 other videos first that still left me unsure, really appreciate your help.

What about 220? Both are hot???

This guy is in love with his voice. Too much advertisement and no action. Just show how is used.

Thanks for the very helpful video. Just a little question, some of my electrical outlets have ground and some don't. For the cases when there's no ground wire, can I run an extension cord from an outlet with with ground and touch the ground with the black probe and then touch one of the wires with the red probe to find hot wire?

Great vid except how do you ID the ground wire? I have three unidentified wires with colored coatings I have never seen.

Any idea why some resources say to turn off the breaker first? Made no sense to me as how will I read electricity when there’s no electricity running through.

Great video!! Thanks!!

Good explanation, however:
■ If the switch is a 2-way switch (3 wires), you will find 2 "hot wires" depending on the position of the other 2-way switch that works together for the same lamp; so, you have to go turn on or off the other switch to find which one of your "hot wires" is actually the hot one; alternatively, you can unscrew all wires in both switches to find the hot wire.
■ If the switch doesn't have a ground wire connected to its ground screw, you will have to use your skin as a neutral, or a neutral from any near outlet (neutral is the larger of the 2 slots), I found a switch on my home, that doesn't have a ground wire connected to its green screw, I will fix that.

what do you do if you dont know which terminal is ground? or youre not confident it's connected to ground properly?

So I put the meter on AC reading, put my black on ground and red on black but it read very low. Did the same on black to ground and red to white and it read low, then I set the black on white and red on black and it read 120ac. How is that connected to a switch? I thought the black would be the hot and neutrals just get bonded together

Thanks for explaining this.. really appreciate your help...

Good video. Well explained

My light switch no ground wire. And 2 blacks wire connected to switch and how i know which wire in hot and which wire in neutral wire ?

Wow, I just wanted to thank you for making such an incredibly helpful video! It really made a difference in my understanding of electrical wiring.

I’m watching at two times speed and it’s still unbearably slow Jesus get to the fucking point

Thank you so so much for this video, helped me understand my situation purely

Hello, thank you for the pod-cast,very informative! I have a chandelier that does not have the ground wire to attach to the ground wire inside the ceiling wire box. How should I approach the mounting of the chandelier? My 2nd Question relates finding the hot wire on the chandelier wire. The only difference between the two wires is a combination of a series of numbers. Would that be the hot wire to put to the hot wire from the ceiling box? Thank you

I have a bad feeling my old house is messed up. I have a light switch connected to a power outlet. I successfully converted the outlet back to a regular outlet. When I pigtailed the light switch to a light it failed the volts test and will not operate the light. Please help this stupid noob.

All 3 of my wires are black, so how do I know the difference between the ground wire and the neutral wire if neither have voltage

Basic question. Was the breaker OFF while you were doing this procedure? I have to check 5 different black wires in the same box, and would not be comfortable with the breaker on...

What happens if u dont put the black prong on the ground? Is it dangerous?

Hey Adam, love your videos! I am becoming a DIYer now.

Are there any techniques to mark the line and load wires connected to a switch/receptacle? A little effort during the first installation would save tons of time in the future.

When I found the hot wire I was shocked