I'm replacing all outlets in our house to match bright white and while doing so will be placing a few strategic GFCI outlets, as we have an ungrounded system in most of the house (1961 build). We also have numerous ungrounded 3 prong outlets and will be selling our house in the coming year, so I plan to switch them back to 2 prong outlets to limit code violations.

As ive started the project, I've noticed all ungrounded outlets that I've tested indicate a reverse polarity. Opening up the first outlet receptacle, I found white on gold, black on silver. My understanding is white is typically neutral, while black is hot. Testing my wires confirms black is hot, white is neutral. So from what I understand, whoever installed my outlets wired them backwards, as hot wire should go to gold, while neutral should go to silver.

My question is can I simply flip the wires on the newly installed GFCI so that it is correct polarity? Or is there a practical reason the wires were flip-flopped (reverse polarity) when installed?

Fix the wire orientation so the polarity is correct


You can bring it up to code if you install a gfci outlet on the home run upstream from all the other outlets on the circuit. You can also install a gfci breaker on that circuit and then not install a gfci outlet but those breakers are usually 3x-4x what a gfci outlet cost. Also you are suppose to put a sticker notifying the user on every plate that the outlet is ungrounded gfci protected



"Three-prong outlet receptacles without a ground connection are legal, per National Electrical Code [NEC 406.4(D)(2)(b,c)], as long as they are GFCI-protected. You can provide GFCI-protection by replacing the old receptacle with a GFCI one, replacing the first receptacle in the circuit with a GFCI receptacle that will protect the other receptacles downstream, or by installing a GFCI-breaker in the panel for the circuit. Each protected receptacle must have a "GFCI-PROTECTED" and "NO EQUIPMENT GROUND STICKER" sticker on the face plate. These stickers are included in the box with each GFCI outlet and breaker"

No practical reason to have reverse polarity. It does happen more frequently than I ever thought given some of the urban legends and brother in laws doing wiring in places. That or a lot more electricians that I ever imagined are color blind.

What JP76 worte above pretty well nails it regarding adding GFCI's to your 2 prong system.

Thanks for the help fellas. For some reason the GFCI is still reading hot/nuetral reverse? The black is definitely hot and is connected to the gold screws. The downstream outlets are only reading open ground, no reverse polarity.


Edit: I flipped the white line wire to gold and the black line wire to silver. Outlet tester now shows no hot/neutral reversal. Testing the bare wires only with the touchless voltage indicator only indicates on the black wire. Something seems amiss.

Those little outlet testers can be handy diagnostic tools, but they may not reliably tell you polarity on an ungrounded system since they use the ground pin for reference. They use a different method for determining the hot conductor than a non-contact voltage tester, but both tools have their place.

I don't believe it's a code violation if you put a sticker that says "No equipment ground" on the outlet plate.

Also, instead of using a GFCI outlet, I'd replace the breaker with a AFCI/GFCI combo and put "AFCI/GFCI protected outlet" sticker on the plates for the entire circuit.

AFCIs are a bad idea on existing wiring with that age, especially with unknown conditions. You would be asking for issues with shared neutrals or even floating neutrals nuisance tripping the AFCI.

I really appreciate everything everybody has offered.

The next circuit I tried to tackle is not straightforward either. For the upstream outlet the line has a red, black and white wire. The red wire is attached to the hot screw on the outlet. The black wire is wire nutted to the to the black load wire and doesn't touch the outlet. The white line wire is attached to the neutral screw on the outlet. The white load wire is attached to the other nuetral screw on the outlet.

I'm thinking I'll just covert this outlet to a two prong since I don't understand the wiring situation. The next outlet downstream will be the GFCI then I'll leave the two remaining downstream three prong outlets as GFCI protected.


Edit: I believe the issues outlined on the circuit I'm currently working on are just that the outlet is or was wired to a switch somewhere. Anyways, I just made it two prong and put the GFCI on the next outlet.

UnderoosAg said:

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AFCIs are a bad idea on existing wiring with that age, especially with unknown conditions. You would be asking for issues with shared neutrals or even floating neutrals nuisance tripping the AFCI.

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I had an electrician come by and he was nice enough to coach me through the cheapest/easiest path to getting everything to code. I was initially considering having him put the GFCI's at the breakers, but he thought the way I'm doing it would be best. He said the grounded outlet code is kind of dumb anyways given 90% of objects that get plugged in are only 2 prong.