Electrical – Ground wire in 14/2 NM-B cable is at 60+ Volts when not connected to anything

electricalwiring

I bought two 25' lengths of 14/2 wire for installing a light.

When the black wire is connected to live (say, of an outlet), with ground and neutral wires not connected to anything, the ground wire reads 60V with respect to the outlet ground.

The black wire reads 122V to outlet ground as expected.

I imagined that there is a short between the black and ground wire in the romex, but the multimeter says it is an open loop. (If there was a short I expect it would read a full 122V though).

Any idea what is causing this?

Cheers
Ray

Best Answer

It's not connected to anything. There is non-zero capacitance between the lines in the cable, and your meter has a high input impedance. Capacitive coupling gives you a phantom voltage that will disappear as soon as anything is connected.

Connect the ground and neutral correctly and the non-problem will go away. Then there's the question of WHY you were connecting the hot wire without connecting the ground and neutral...