kmpres

I could use a little more info. For example, I recently moved a ceiling light over our stair-well one foot over to an adjacent stud to make room for a heat-pump that we had recently installed professionally. I first needed to disconnect it from the ceiling fixture so I made sure the switch was off, but did not turn off the breaker because I needed light from other sources on the circuit to see what I was doing. A dead light, though, means there's no power going through it, right? I disconnected the light without difficulty, but before redoing the connection I decided to test the line with a Fluke meter. I was surprised to see that the meter read 66.7 volts AC! It wasn't millivolts, it wasn't fluctuating in the low ranges, it was a steady 66.7 volts AC. To be sure no real current was flowing I touched the exposed wire ends to the prongs of a small 20W night light and the filament stayed dark. Since I was 12 feet in the air on an aluminum ladder I decided not to test things further and simply made sure I didn't touch the exposed ends while working on the wires. After the work was done the light functioned just fine. So how is it possible that a dead line can measure such a high voltage and not be a hazard? The house is one year old, built by a contractor, and the service is 100V 50 Hz (Tokyo Japan).