Electrical – How to test Honeywell aquastat L6006C

The wire needs to be designed to handle the capacity of the circuit it's attached to, not the device that is plugged in. Otherwise, if anything is plugged into the end, or if there is a short, that draws more power, but not in excess of the circuit breaker, you would have a fire risk. I don't have a copy of the NEC, but to the best of my knowledge, in the US, a 15 amp circuit needs a 14 gauge wire, a 20 amp circuit requires a 12 gauge, and a 30 amp circuit requires a 10 gauge. Therefore, your 18 gauge wire is insufficient to attach to any standard circuit breakers that I've seen.

To answer your second question, you could install a separate ground for the other end of the connection and wire a gfci to that, assuming that the existing wiring were adequate for the circuit.

To fix the conduit, I would eliminate any sharp 90 degree turns and if it runs over a long enough distance, break the run by going up to an access panel.

From all this, I conclude the following is likely:

• Only the outlet in the kitchen next to the sink is properly wired.
• All other outlets have hot and neutral reversed.
• There is no ground connection.
• Unexpected observed voltages (mostly 60 volts) are caused by stray capacitance.

I'll mark it accepted when I get complete confirmation.

Outlets need to have their hot and neutral corrected. Outlets need to be grounded or labelled as "GFCI protected" and "no equipment ground."

Fluctuating voltage from the actually hot line to true ground (the water pipe) is caused by current flow reducing the electrical resistance of the line. Voltage is otherwise high and stable for the capacitive currents as they don't induce enough flow.