Talk:Ground and neutral

Propose Merger

I don't know how wikipedia manages one-to-many associations. In some languages, a word can have multiple translations in another. There are currently 3 articles for the same thing, Ground and neutral, Ground (electricity), and earthing system. Most languages that have an article on this topic have one. The problem is what to link to from those languages? Doseiai2 (talk) 10:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As an interim measure I have put links to all 3 articles on the disambig page for Ground. Biscuittin (talk) 11:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

grounds and neutrals serve two different purposes. Ground is a standard reference. Neutrals are current carrying conductors that act as a return path in a circut. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.15.105 (talk) 15:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have put up merge banners. --Kvng (talk) 17:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I see that this topic was broached three years ago, and apparently with no resolution. Should it be continued here and now, or should it be discussed in a new section? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I pointed the merge banners at this section. If that's not acceptable, create a new section and adjust the banners. --Kvng (talk) 02:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Suggest instead refactoring anything relative only to "ground" out of "ground and neutral" into this article and re-naming 'ground and neutral' just 'neutral'. This would hide our collective confusion on these topics from the unwary reader. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

There is also Earthing system which is more about ground than neutral. I'm OK to have three articles on closely-related topics so long as scope is well defined and overlap is minimized. There's a lot of overlap at present. --Kvng (talk) 02:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Wtshymanski, you've taken down the merge banners without doing an of your proposed "refactoring". What's up with that? --Kvng (talk) 14:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Once again I forgot to clear an edit with the editorial board. You've got any suggestions for what should be moved? --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:34, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Your edits (removing merge banners) do not match your stated intent to refactor and they do not improve the article. I have not had time to explore what needs to be done here. I do not work quickly. I'm always hopeful that someone will beat me to it. I would prefer that the merge banners stay up until 1/ someone does the merge, 2/ it is agreed here that a merge is unnecessary or 3/ other changes to the article(s) make a merge unnecessary. Two of those three can be done WP:BOLDly. --Kvng (talk) 01:24, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Outdent I had a look at Ground and neutral and did not see vast swathes of text better off somewhere else. Maybe I've been desensitized by too much looking at Wikipedia articles but compared to many, this one is actually on-point and gives some context for its babbling. The merge tag was on for months with no activity. If anyone feels moved to spend a weekend refactoring and merging, WP:BOLD but since this was kicked around 3 years ago with no result, it rather indicates interested editors have bigger fish to fry. We still haven't cataloged all the JEDEC part numbers, for goodness' sake. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

There's no time limit on sorting this out. I believe the merge banners are useful to readers editors alike and should remain up until editors feel material is effectively organized. We don't remove a {{refimprove}} banner just because it has been sitting there for too long. --Kvng (talk) 22:03, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Combining neutral with earth

This may be done in some countries but I'm pretty sure it is not done in the UK. See also my comment at Talk:Electrical bonding. Biscuittin (talk) 20:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems I was wrong. See Talk:Electrical bonding. Biscuittin (talk) 18:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Even though this is done in the UK, NZ and Australia, it doesn't seem prevalent in the world, so the wording "Neutral is usually connected to ground (earth) at the main electrical panel, street drop, or meter, and also at the final step-down transformer of the supply" might not be accurate? Introiboad (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

what is the voltage between ground and neutral? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nik dholariya (talk • contribs) 06:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Neutral as earthing?

"Connecting the neutral to the equipment case provides some protection against faults/shorts, but may produce a dangerous voltage on the case if the neutral connection is broken."

Should this not read, "but may produce a dangerous voltage on the housing if the neutral is untied from earth"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.234.108 (talk) 18:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

In some English-speaking countries, "Case" or "Casing" is synonymous with "Housing" - 03 March 2011

Wow I think this is wrong

The first line of the article states "Ground or earth in a mains (AC power) electrical wiring system is a conductor that provides a low impedance path to the earth to prevent hazardous voltages from appearing on equipment"

This is not correct. I think this article needs a rewrite. The idea that ground removes hazardous voltage is a very dangerous and incorrect idea. Grounding electrodes are to give neutral points a stable reference NOT to carry current. A 25 ohm grounded connection to earth can only carry 4.8 amps at 120V. This is not even enough to open a circuit breaker!

Here is an idea to how incorrect this article is. http://www.mikeholt.com/mojonewsarchive/GB-HTML/HTML/Grounding-Part-1-of-12~20041005.php

I will try to give it more time when I am not at work. I only created an account because I have never seen anything on Wikipedia this incorrect and I thought I should make it known. Electros (talk) 05:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's wrong. In the UK we normally call it "earth". I agree that varying usage is confusing, and the wording has been clarified slightly. Your 25 ohm grounded connection to earth would not pass the basic UK earth test. Dbfirs 08:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Electros I find the entire article repetitive and confusing. I feel like few people really understand the theory or practise of earthing. I would applaud any effort to improve! 1.146.241.159 (talk) 13:33, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Extra connections

The article currently reads: "Extra connections between ground and circuit neutral may result in circulating current in the ground path, stray current introduced in the earth or in a structure, and stray voltage"
As I see it, extra connections prevent stray voltages. Can we have a reference if the statement is somehow true? Dbfirs 19:18, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Neutral does not "return to source"

This wording, so commonly associated with discussions of the neutral wire, is IMO misleading. In an AC circuit the current is constantly reversing and so the imagery of a "return" is misleading. The neutral is connected to ground, which is not the source of the fields that are driving the current in an AC circuit. I am not an expert so will not attempt an edit. This is a very good article on the neutral wire from EE Times:

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272209# Bluepost22 (talk) 15:23, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Here is the wording I objected to:

"Neutral is a circuit conductor that normally carries current back to the source."Bluepost22 (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

You are technically correct, of course, but the analogy with DC is a useful one. How can we re-phrase it so that it does not mislead? Dbfirs 14:58, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Is the analogy to DC useful or are the misconceptions about the neutral wire partially due to the DC analogy? I just don't consider myself expert enough to suggest wording. I have spent some considerable time looking at internet sources and can't find anything as rigorous as the article I cited above. Here is a quote from the article above -- is it authoritative? Is it useful?

"Electrical power flows in the form of current, which must pass through the equipment and then return to the power source. Therefore, it is convenient to think of one wire to the load being the "source" wire and one being the "return" wire. This simple model is appropriate for DC systems but does not work for an AC system because the flow of the power is continually reversing direction with a frequency of 50 or 60 times per second. From the point of view of the equipment or the power source, the source and return wires are constantly being interchanged. In fact, no equipment can tell which wire is which! It is easily demonstrated that the two power wires to any piece of AC equipment can be interchanged without any affect on function. In fact, in Europe, unlike North America, the plug on a piece of equipment can be plugged in either way! (The asymmetrical offset ground pin on the North American 3-wire outlet makes it impossible to reverse the connection of the two power wires). This fact of symmetry seems to be at odds with the distinct labeling of the AC power wires as "hot" and "neutral".

The reason that one of the power wires is named "neutral" is because it is connected directly to the building ground connection at the circuit breaker panel. Therefore it is connected directly to the grounding (third) wire. In essence, then, two of the three wires at the wall receptacle are actually grounded wires, one being used for power flow, and the other connected only to exposed metal parts on the equipment. The power wire that is grounded is called the "neutral" wire because it is not dangerous with respect to exposed metal parts or plumbing. The "hot" wire gets its name because it is dangerous."'Bluepost22 (talk) 17:37, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The system would work in exactly the same way if the neutral were not connected to ground. The only thing that distinguishes the neutral from the live is this connection to ground at various points in the system (called "protective multiple earthing" in the UK). Your quote is a bit wordy, but accurate except that the UK is still in Europe (for a few more weeks, and permanently geographically) and UK 13A plugs and sockets distinguish between live and neutral. One more distinction: switches always go on the live side, never the neutral. Dbfirs 18:53, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I believe that the statement "Neutral is a circuit conductor that normally carries current back to the source." is the best way to describe the flow of electricity in this case. The reason is that many sources, including ones otherwise viewed as reliable, incorrectly state that "electricity goes to ground" or "electricity always seeks ground", and this has serious safety implications that result in people who read such statements to incorrectly design and use electrical and repair safety-related electrical items. Yes, neutral is connected to ground, but only at one point, and this is somewhat incidental to its main purpose of providing the intended return path for AC electricity from the hot wire (connected to one end of a transformer wiring) to the transformer (specifically the center tap of the transformer wiring).PetesGuide, K6WEB (talk) 18:57, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

In the UK, the protective multiple earthing system requires that neutral is connected to earth at many points (but not at the appliance). I agree that the main purpose of the neutral wire is to complete the circuit to the source, and the connections to earth are incidental and purely for safety purposes. Can we agree on modified phrasing, or do you think we should retain "back to source" as if it were a DC system (though actually electrons flow from the negative wire to the positive). Could we say that neutral completes the circuit back to source? Dbfirs 19:14, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Suppose that for my house, the neutral in my 3 wire split phase 120/240 was run from the transformer straight down the pole into a ground spike. Would the system still work? If so, then ... Bluepost22 (talk) 23:55, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, of course. That is exactly what happens here in the UK at the 500v split-phase transformer near my house, but I get only one half of the output of the centre-tapped transformer (i.e. 250v). I've never tried disconnecting the neutral supply wire, but I suspect that everything would still work because there are deep earth connections at my house and at the transformer 50 metres away, and with a hundred inches of rain each year, the ground is always wet. In a less wet area, this wouldn't work so well. Dbfirs 07:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

No, of course not (in the U.S.). About Bluepost asking about "... run from the transformer straight down the pole into a ground spike". In the U.S., there are two hot conductors and a neutral conductor, all of which can carry power under most circumstances. The voltage between the 2 hot conductors are 220V. The voltage between a hot conductor and the neutral conductor is 110V. A power outlet uses the neutral and one of the hot conductors to provide 110V. Half of the outlets use one hot conductor, and the other half of the outlets use the other hot conductor. If, under an unusual situation, only the outlets in one half of the building are in use, where those outlets use the same hot conductor, then that hot conductor carries the same current as the neutral. But if the neutral feed from pole to house only goes through the earth, as I understand what Bluepost is asking about, then the electrical resistance through the earth is too much, and the voltage at the outlets will drop as more appliances are turned on for those aforementioned outlets. A vacuum cleaner, a window air-conditioner, and refrigerator in 3 of the outlets at the same time likely will drop the outlet voltage down to maybe 5 volts, depending on the typical resistance of the earth. At the same time, the outlets using the other hot conductor may have 210 volts, and kill any small appliance that is plugged in to it. This scenario is obviously a disaster. In a different but also uncommon use scenario, where power usage is balanced between half the outlets using one hot conductor, and the other half of the outlets using the other hot conductor, almost no current will flow through the neutral, and all the outlets in the house will have 120V each. Now about the normal ground connection in a correct installation -- When there is no electrical fault, current should never flow through the ground wires. Ohgddfp (talk) 17:01, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your edit as proposed, and I like it better.

So do you agree that the "circuit" in household wiring is really not closed in the sense of an ungrounded DC circuit like a flashlight, but that the ground serves as a very large alternating source/sink for current? This physical approach is probably too esoteric for the article.

Having had a week to think about it, my objection to the word "return" is perhaps too semantic. I think people want to know practical facts about the neutral.

Do you want to include the history of the polarized plug from the article I cited above? They claim that the polarized plug was invented to make the threaded part of the light bulb socket neutral.

How about adding a section on the working of the GFCI, which will include the fact that the neutral carries as much current as the hot leg.

Thanks for the dialogue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluepost22 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

The ground/earth should not serve as a source at all except in my illegal scenario of disconnecting the neutral, or maybe carrying a tiny percentage of the current where there is a low impedance earth and bad insulation in the appliance. In a legal installation, a complete circuit through neutral implies that the current is the same in both live and neutral. In the UK, we mainly use bayonette light fittings, so there is no safety issue because the surrounding metal of the connection is insulated from both live and neutral. We still have polarised plugs for other safety reasons (and for the Edison Screw fittings that we occasionally see). I'd be happy to see something on polarised plugs in the arrticle. Dbfirs 17:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

In the case of a neutral grounded at the pole, wouldn't you agree that half the time the transformer is pushing current into the ground, and the other half the transformer is pulling current up out of the ground? The transformer doesn't know we didn't ground the neutral at the circuit breaker box. Not advocating this illegal/unsafe practice, just using it as an example to understand the physics better. Bluepost22 (talk) 18:17, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

In a legal installation, that ground current will be very small because there is a much lower impedance path through neutral. In the UK, the neutral must legally be grounded at both the fuse box or circuit breaker and at the transformer, and is often grounded at poles in between, and within a house by bonding to water pipes. If there is a significant current to earth, then modern (RCCB) circuit breakers will trip because they detect that not all of the current is flowing "back" through neutral. Dbfirs 18:35, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Dealt with! Using the term 'carries current' worked better than the existing text, and describing the neutral and phase line(s) together forming a circuit between supply and load solves the problem, though it's not ideal to mention 'phase line conductors' without anything suitable to link to to help define them, but they deserved a mention. DiscreetParrot (talk) 01:58, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Content fork?

Wikipedia already has an article on Ground (electricity) though no corresponding article on Neutral (electricity). Instead, there is a link for Neutral wire which redirects here (back in 2008 there was an actual article). Is there a reason we do not have a standalone article on Neutral (electricity)? Am I the only one who thinks "Neutral and ground" is a terrible search term? Is there a technical reason we cannot move most or all of this article there? No one has gone ahead and done it yet, so I am assuming there must be. Or else maybe there is just too much resistance to change. "Neutral and ground" is a terrible search term. Surely we can do better than this! A loose necktie (talk) 01:43, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I've just done a tone of editing here towards tidying it up. More to be done. I may return to do more myself later. DiscreetParrot (talk) 02:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Why both neutral and ground?

I don't know a ton about electrical systems. I read this article carefully, and I feel it's not super clear why it is important to have both neutral and ground.

This article says ground is to provide a path from any metal parts of an electrical device that could become energized in order to prevent shocks, while neutral is a return of current from normal use. It also explicitly describes the risk of connecting ground and neutral anywhere but the main service panel: if so, during normal operations, the current could return along both paths (neutral and ground).

I think this is useful information (though I wish it could be even more clearly differentiated), but I don't feel qualified to edit this page. Is someone willing to take a shot? dfrankow (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This article has been the effort of scores of Wikipedia's top experts for more than a decade, so of course it's been revised to the point of uselessness. I tried to put a bit in the lead that explains the point before we go off into the weeds, but doubtless the Panel will convene and quickly correct my ravings. Good luck. I suggest buying any electrician's handbook for a more lucid and authoritative explanation. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)