Years ago, an electrician showed me how to test for a hot wire using a neon tester; hold one lead of the tester between your fingers, touch the other lead to the wire in question. The bulb glows faintly if the wire is hot. I have done this hundreds of times with 120 v circuits, and never felt so much as a tingle from it, and this has never failed me (as long as the tester is the simple, single bulb type). Is this dangerous, and I've been pushing my luck all this time? an opinion, please...

I'm a beginner - so please bear with me and hopefully help me see the light.... :confused: 1. I have a switch in my kitchen that controls the power to an outlet in the middle of my backyard (which still works fine- that is not the problem.) 2. I want to move the outlet from the middle of the yard to a new outlet mounted to my house and then run another line to the back end of the yard for a pond. 3. I then shut off the power, dug up all the wire, mounted a new GCFI outlet with the existing 14-2 UF wire (black wire to hot, white wire to neutral in the line holes in the receptacle, and pig tailed the ground - see item #4 below.) 4. Then ran approximately 100ft of 12-2 UF wire (black to hot, white to neutral, pigtailed the grounds to the receptacle in the load line.) The reason I ran 12-2 is becuase a wiring book recommended it becuase it is over 50 feet run of cable. 5. Installed another GCFI outlet near the pond (black wire to hot, white to neutral, and ground to screw in the second receptacle near the pond.) 6. Turned on the power, it worked for about 30 minutes then tripped and keeps tripping no matter what I try. I checked all wiring and everything to mee seems as it should be.) This is all running from a 15amp breaker. Anyhelp would be apprecited - I'm going nuts.....