reversed polarity.

sober4today

i'm buying a resale home and had it inspected. the inspector said various (scattered through out the hosse) oputlets had reversed polarity. i got one of those tester things like he had, with 3 little lights and sure enough, he's right.
i thought no-problem, i'll just remove the outlet and straighten out the wiring. i assumed that somehow, the black wire was hooked to the silver screw and the white to the gold colored screw--i was told it should be the other way around.
i opened a few outlets, (yes, juice OFF) and they are wired as the instructions say, so now i don't have a clue where to go from here.
does anyone have any suggestions?
maybe one of the pro's here???
thanx.

joed

The wires could be reversed at the end of the cable feeding the receptacle. Check the receptacles with proper polarity and make sure the blacks are connected to the blacks and the whites to the whites.

tmrrptr

Or, you could use black, and white tape, to id the wires according to their proper polarity.... wrap tape up into the box, over the conductor, so there is no mistaking what it is, and attach properly.
Leave the other boxes alone that show proper polarity.

No telling where the problem is... depending on the electrician who wired it. Could be next room, above or below, or feed thru switchbox.

Just fix polarity at your point of use and call it good
or it might be best to hire an electrician.
r

dmaceld

Figure out which outlet feeds to which outlet on each circuit. I would guess that the outlet just before the reverse polarity one has the black/white wires swapped on the down circuit side of the outlet, i.e. each side of the outlet has a black and white wire instead of two black or two white. That outlet would be polarized correctly but every one beyond would be reversed.

It may be faster to just pull every outlet out to find the one with reversed wires. This is assuming the wires are correct in the breaker panel.