Neutral as Earth

[zzbthi]

Hi,
I'm replacing a faulty bathroom fan that was installed prior to me taking ownership of my flat.

When removing the old fan prior to installing the new one I noticed that instead of using an earth wire, a second neutral wire had been connected to the earth screw on the device.

Although this is most certainly contrary to wiring regulations, is this unsafe to:
- the user (given that the device is operated by a pull cord only); and also
- the device itself - can it cause damage?

Thanks for your help.

Brad

[sparx]

Hi this seems most unlikely to be the case,
are you sure the '2nd neutral' is not in fact an earth but wrongly sleeved with a piece of black instead of green/yellow?

[ericmark]

To assume is dangerous one needs as always to test. To test if a wire is neutral or earth normally one needs to switch off the main isolator. I have in the past had a problem in where colours are not to be trusted working out what is neutral and what is earth.

Many fans have two lines and as a result it needs more than two core and earth so it is possible that the colours are wrong. So question is how do you know it's a neutral wire?