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Question:

In electrical wiring why do you need a neutral wire?

I know what the hot wire and ground wire are but why do you need a neutral wire? The hot wire is black and the ground is green right? So neutral is white? My bigger question though is why do you need a neutral wire--what is its purpose? Thank you!

Answer:

Your query provides limited information, yet i think of you're conversing with reference to the hot breaker for the addition, and not the kitchen lighting fixtures circuit. you have a short someplace if no longer something is plugged in or working. to ensure, unplug each little thing and close off any lighting fixtures on that circuit. Reset breakerif it journeys you have a short circuit (black white wires crossed or touching ) or a black cord grounding out someplace. seems such as you have the breaker under pressure out into the container ideal. it rather is not correct the place (on the sector bar) which you connect the white cord. you maximum possibly have an argument with the wiring interior the addition. final, you may attempt utilising yet another breaker, quickly, to be sure your breaker is powerful.
Electricity needs a loop to complete a circuit.That's what the black and white wire do.But in the event of a short electricity travels to the path of least resistance.The ground wire provides that path and safely dissipates the current to ground.
The neutral is to carry all the return current from the hot wire, while the ground is only for safety. In the US, the National Electrical Code (National Fire Protection Agency document 70) is the law of the land and it requires the neutral to be grounded at the service entrance and nowhere else. There are also electrical reasons to do it that way - if you connected the return side of everything in the house to ground instead of to return wires that returned all the way to the service entrance, the finite resistance of the ground would cause lights to dim whenever you turned anything in the house on.
Not an automotive question. The neutral completes the circuit. In a car you have some COMMON ground circuits and some two wire circuits,the frame/body acts a neutral. Correct me if i'm wrong. I'm not an electrician
The neutral is the return for the electricity, The ground is not to be used for this, for safety reasons, it must go to ground. They are not supposed to be connected together the neutral and the ground, although, in some older wiring systems this is the case. In newer installations they are separated. Edit: For the person who says that the neutral is connected to the ground at the service entrance that is incorrect, go read your code book again, I've installed every thing from 3 phase on down and never are the neutral and ground connected.

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