Help! Open Hot-New wiring

I tore down the walls in my room and am replacing all the old electrical wiring with I have the main wire coming straight from the breaker to a GFI and 4 receptacles feeding off, along with a switch and wire for a fan that I will be installing. Now when I went to go test the power and make sure everything was working properly , I got a "Hot Open" reading on one of those testers that you just plug in and it lights up. I checked every outlet to make sure the Hot(White wire if I'm correct) Is connected securely(I used the hook or loop method) and it is. I also checked the black wire and ground just to be on the safe side, and everything seems good. So could it be that the fan is not installed and the circuit is not able to complete? Or is the way I wired everything wrong? I have a illustration below of how I was told to do the wiring but when I looked up "How to wire multiple receptacles" I got a different method.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.



**The red and black wire in the illustration that are not connected to anything is the extra wire for the fan that I just have hanging for right now.

***The power is off, I don't have live wires hanging

 

Welcome to the forums.

In your drawing we can assume that you used red to illustrate your neutral (white) wiring.

On the receptacle, the small slot is connected to the brass screws. That is the side of the receptacle for the black HOT wire(s).

The larger slot on the receptacle is connected to the silver screws, That is the side of the receptacle for the white NEUTRAL wire(s).

On the GFI receptacle, which also has silver and brass screws, there is a location for LINE. Line is the cable that goes to the breaker. There is a second location for LOAD. Load is the cable that feeds the rest of your circuit.


As an electrician I would take the two white wires and connect them along with a short piece of wire called a tail so that only one wire would go to the receptacle. Same for the blacks and the grounds. You can use all four screws like you did but it's just more mechanical places to have problems.
This method would be used for the regular recptacles. You can't combine wiring on a GFI receptacle.

 

You have a problem with your colors, the white wire should not be used as the hot wire. Read PJ's post carefully and follow his instructions.

Is this room a kitchen, in an unfinished basement or in a garage? I was just wondering why your are using a GFCI receptacle.

 

Here is your way with the switch on the load side but I would recommend putting the switch on the line side.

 

It is a regular room. I installed the gfi because I honestly thought it was just a good idea to have one installed.


Okay so I got the wire colors backwards, but I know the white wire goes to silver screw and the black wire goes to copper looking screws. I checked it to make sure and it is all right.

I also am aware of the Line and Load on the gfi. I just checked it and it is wired up correctly. Line is going down to the breaker and load is going to the additional receptacles.

I wish I would have known about the way you do it because it was a pain in the butt trying to get all those damn wires in the box.

 

Look at it this way..... you learned at least one new thing today.

 

What extra wires? There should be two blacks and two whites in each box. Do you have more? That is the number your diagram shows or am I missing something other then the grounds which for simplicity I don't show in my diagram?

 

The extra wires I was referring to were not really extra, they are wires I left hanging fo
r when I install the fan.

 

Okay so I did a voltage test with my multimeter and from the gfi I am getting 120V from the line side but from the load side im getting 100mV. So would the gfi be no good?

Just an fyi the gfi is brand new.

 

From the load terminals to what? To each other?

Make sure your GFCI is reset and test from LOAD hot to LOAD neutral. Test again to ground; this should trip the GFCI, probably too quickly for you to get a reading.