Outlet tester mystery

[FullySprinklered]

I was troubleshooting a dead circuit in an upstairs bedroom today. The ceiling fan/light was not working, nor were the lights in the adjacent bathroom. The outlets in the bedroom showed " Hot-Ground Reversed" on my plug-in outlet tester.
I opened several boxes looking for obvious problems, and found nothing. For a while I was getting a good beep on my stick tester on a white wire from the c/f while the black wires were disconnected.
After randomly reconfiguring some of the connections in the switch box for the c/f, things started working and I put everything back with a new stack switch for the c/fan. Pretty much ended up with things the way they were when I got there, except everything was now working.
Here's the question: if the ground and the hot were really and truly reversed, shouldn't I at least be blessed with a shower of sparks? Maybe a tripped breaker. A smoldering ruin in the subdivision?
Any thoughts?

 

[Reach4]

There would usually be no symptom at all.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Stuff]

Was it hot-ground reversed or hot-neutral reversed?

Hot-ground reversed would mean that nothing would be getting power but the chassis (like washing machine or refrigerator) would be hot to the touch.

Hot-neutral reversed would screw up some gas furnaces and newer GFCIs but most things would work fine. Light bulb sockets would have outer surface hot so would be a safety issue for screwing in a light bulb. A lot of pre-1960's two prong equipment had the neutral side attached to the chassis so is a danger there.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Hot-ground. My first experience with that reading. No way I could make sense of that.

 

[Stuff]

Wow. That is something that would be on a trade school test, not expect to run into that in real life. Someone playing a joke or sabotage?

 

[WorthFlorida]

Did the hot wire for the ceiling light and fan seem to be from the same circuit? I would suspect an open nuetral and your getting "back feed". Power from the hot wire throught the fan motor or light is sensed at the open neutral wire.

Whenever I get wierd stuff I alway eliminate then isolate the problem. I would disconnect every switch and outlet that you suspect is in the circuit. Before you turn power back on check for any outhet or switch that is not working, even outdoor lights (possibly added after the house was built). Turn power on and find the hot lead and neutral and start from there adding switches and outlests and check polarity as you go along. Check for any three way switches. Is the ceiling fan wiring original to the house, or was it added and that power was tapped off another circuit in the attic, etc.?

As far as why everything started to work is possible a bad outlet, connection or wire nut connection was bad.

 

[Jadnashua]

Your install should switch the hot lead, but if they are switching the neutral instead, you can get some weird symptoms not counting the fact that it's not safe! Any way you break the circuit will shut off the load (open circuit), but only removing the hot side is the way it's supposed to be done.

 

[FullySprinklered]

I was opening boxes, working my way around the room. All the BR outlets that I had checked had the Hot/Grnd reversed reading. So, when I got to the outlets on either side of the bed, they showed correct with the plug-in tester. That's when I went back to the double switch box and started rechecking things and reconnecting wires in what would be considered normal for the assumed intended usage.
After reading WorthFlorida's and Jim's replies, I'm thinking that someone may have unwittingly repurposed the three conductor cable to run the fan and light separately, while it was originally run to switch the outlets by the bed.
The other most likely problem would be a crossover between two circuits as mentioned by Worth.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Ok, I keep running into the hot/ground reversed reading. Two more jobs I've got the reading this week.

Don't know the whys and wherefores, but on all the strange readings there's a three conductor wire involved in a circuit where a neutral is broken or loose. You would think it would show "open neutral", but it seems the extra hot throws it off somehow.

On today's job the neutral was broken. There was a three conductor cable, the red was switched to a couple of eyeballs, and the black went to a ceiling fan.

On Wednesday's job, all the outlets in the master bedroom were half-switched, and the outgoing neutral backwired into the second outlet downstream of the switch, was loose and pulled out of the outlet when I removed the receptacle. I wrapped the neutral around the screw and everything that wasn't working, (adjacent bathroom suite lighting and downstream outlets), started working.