@John Mackenzie if you have a means of testing the circuit you can test from each conductor to the metal box and see if one of them has voltage. If it is an old metal clad cable called BX the shielding may be grounded. They do not intend for the shield to provide a ground for the receptacle though. On a GFCI receptacle polarity does matter. The energized conductor needs to go to the hot side which will have a gold screw. The GFI also has terminals marked line and load. To feed receptacle you use the ones marked line. The outlet will work properly with just a hot and a neutral attached. It does not have to have a ground. There is a code ruling which says you can replace an old two prong outlet with a GFI outlet without having to provide a ground to it because the GFI is a safety feature

Hm.. I thought it had to be grounded or it would trip

Ok then I'm at a loss for what's wrong, I put the old one back in and it works fine

I put the power to the gold screws and neutral to silver screws

And I swapped them when I thought I mixed up line and load, but it didn't work either way

The hot wire goes on the gold screw the white wire goes on the silver screw. The silver screw is for the neutral. Both of these two wires will go on the upper portion of the outlet marked line. How many wires total are you working with two or four

Four

One pair of wires meaning a black and white are the feed circuit coming in. These will have to go to the terminals marked line. The other two wires can go in the load terminals. If you had the hot wire landed properly but had the wrong neutral paired with it the light may work but the outlet will not function properly. You will have to get the hot and neutral paired correctly

Hopefully you can just look at the box ifthe cables come in in separate connectors it's easy to see which two are a pair

They don't, they all come in separately lol, I tried to look back behind the box but I can't see

Can you take a picture of the box and send it to me

It's at my mom's house, I'll stop by after work tomorrow and take a pic

And if you can try to take some type of a tester with you even if it is just a small hand-held light. test light. What it is is you had a hot and neutral come into the Box and feed the outlet and then a pair of wires going out to another load Downstream. You have to identify that pair that it's coming in live. With a test light you should be able to test cross the wires until you find the two that read hot. That should be your hot and your neutral that you would put on the line side.

But if you have some small tester like that I could talk you through it easy enough

Isn't that weird though that it works fine with the old outlet, and after installing the new one in one configuration I swapped the positions of the black wires w/each other and the positions of the white wires w/each other, and it didn't work in either configuration? Then I reinstalled the old outlet and it works fine? Even if I mixed up line and load, I swapped it and still got nothing.

Eh I'll grab a test light and report back tomorrow

Yes I can get confusing when they're not marked properly. You just have to get the hot black wire with the correct white wire. On A regular outlet it does not have the line and load options that the GFI does. In that scenario you just have to get the blacks on one side and the whites on the other

Huh huh huh

Good one Greg

Watching other guys work all day sure is exhausting

Grab a shovel bro, plenty of work to do! 😆 😆

It's cold today, I didn't dress properly.

Fam, I'm a big bad heavy machinery operator. I'm too good to associate with those dirty plebians.

Haha

@John O - you're going to get fat haha.

I need it, man, I'm skinny as hell

You're right though, every professional operator I've seen was 300+lbs

😂 I need it too, I've worked my ass off, literally. I was so stoked on Sunday, I just broke 150lbs😆

Sheeeiiiit

You work outside? I thought you did custom stairwells and shit

I do historic preservation in general, I work inside and out. Even doing windows I'm in and out, painters caulk and paint windows shut, almost like they don't know windows are suppose to open.

Usually with windows I spend the first 4 hours of the day outside.

Hey if I have a question ... who do I @?

@John O -#7072

@John O -

@Deleted User did you get your problem taken care of

Greg's a master electrician, I'm just a late stages apprentice @Deleted User

Yeah a laid-off electrician LOL

Ooh, that sucks dude

You ever get paid by that guy?

Hell. No! Pissed off bad too

@Deleted User no I did not

@Deleted User what's your question? @Deleted User's free haha, sorry

@RevStench I’m at work …give me a few...

There are a bunch of pieces of shit out there, man. Even amongst whites.

Applying for an apprenticeship next Wednesday, wish me luck

Good luck 🍀

🍀

Are you employed? Union? @Deleted User

It's an IBEW sponsored program/apprenticeship

900 in-class hours and 8000 on-the-job hours over the course of 5 years (or less). Something like that.

I didn't realize the Union was so strong in Texas

I was just asking because a lot of guys go to technical schools and lose out on thousands of dollars

I actually got advice from a few guys on here in terms of searching for unions/apprenticeships

Yeah, I think it was me

And Greg

I hadn't seen your avatar in a while, thought you were new

Destroying technical schools is my personal life goal

Well I talked to a few guys via pm, just found this server today

Oh, nvm

Lots of tradesmen in IE

😋

I have a cousin and uncle in the ibew, they like it

I've talked to a fella at the local branch about this apprenticeship, had a great conversation. They seem like standup guys.

I'm applying next Wednesday but I don't think I'll be taking the aptitude test/interview till December, from what I was told.

My mother in law called me yesterday, she’s selling her house and moving (farther away thank god) but she had a ceiling fan in one of the bedrooms that worked intermittently and wobbled pretty bad, stopped by after work to take a look....

LOL

Apparently the previous owner just stuffed the housing full of socks trying to keep it from wobbling

It wobbled because it was half ass attached to a light box, not one for a fan. I would have had to crawl about a mile through her attic to change the box, so I just put a light in its place. I thought the fan motor might have had a short anyway, but it had no continuity to ground, checked the incoming voltage, it was fluctuating between 110 and 40v. Pulled the light switch, whoever put it in had used the stab connectors instead of the screws and had cracked it.

Submitted all my paperwork today

test and interview somewhere in December

My family knows another young man currently ~2 years into the same program/apprenticeship that I'm applying for. He dropped out of college/nursing school with no prior trade experience and was accepted into the program. He says they are DESPERATE for motivated young men ready to work

(pretty much what ya'll that I've spoken to have told me)

Pretty positive that I'll be an employed apprentice electrician by the end of December

will keep ya'll updated

@Px4 you should see some of the crap I've pulled off of walls and ceilings.

Most memorable was a large outdoor led that filled up with water because a seal broke. Line was still hot, just heated all the water for who knows how long and burned the crap out of us when we took it down.

@Deleted User congrats on becoming a man.😂

And yeah man it's really hard to get the young guys to work. The ones I see are lazy, no work ethic, can't show up on time, dick around when they are at work, and complain every minute. Oh and they can't stay off their phones, they take no intuitive.

And God forbid you give them a hard time. We work labor intensive jobs that sucks, we talk shit all day because it's funny.

I'll see a young guy fighting with removing a nail, so I'll say something like, you going to let that little thing whoop your ass. Instead of saying something clever back, they pout about about me being a dick. Ha

Bro, this big black guy started a couple weeks ago, and he can't fucking do his job. He can't pull wire because he's too much of a bitch, even though he's 6'5" 230 lbs, he can't follow directions even though he asks questions all day, and he talks shit even though he's the most useless guy on the crew

I'm going to make him quit

Haha that sucks, I run guys like him off too. Haha

I banter well, follow directions and don't complain.

ready to learn that big brain trade shit

Good luck man, it's treated me well. I have good savings from it, even though I'm underpaid. Even a bad company pays you pretty well.

And where the fuck is @Deleted User

Working on banner lol

Still?

Just getting started trying to do the computer work in the layout now I had to have somebody help me

Did you do the one with Erika?

@Deleted User oh shit, you should have said something, I can help a little. Work is kicking my ass, people want windows before Christmas and not plywood. Haha

Just secured an electrician apprenticeship for this winter with my local IBEW

Bad ass man!

@Nick-NJ If any given circuit gives you too much trouble, you can always just tear it out of the wall.

Haha I'll have to see if there is any correlation to shocking myself and my strength increasing

I'm super excited though since I've been shitting the last 3.5 years finishing up my management degree

Happy for you brother.