I just added a circuit to my breaker box and it got me thinking about how the wiring all works. The neutral and ground both go to the bad bar in the circuit box, if they’re both in the same place then why can’t that just be wired inside the outlet and a single wire runs the length instead of two?
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In theory if everything always worked you’d need only one of them. But in practice, things break.
That’s why your dishwasher is grounded. A live cable in the dishwasher could contact the metal outside, and without that grounded you wouldn’t notice until you touched the machine and the sink at the same time. The sink often a good ground due to metal pipes, it would lead to a dangerous situation.
Now, why don’t you ground the dishwashee with the neutral cable?
First of all, anything that’s connected with a plug is not coded which is live and which is neutral. So, depending how you inserted the plug, the chassie would be either connected to live wire or to neutral. Not good.
Second, even if you ensuredwhich was neutral and which was live and their was a break in the neutral cable somewhere between the dishwasher and the panel, the machin would stop (no current flows, as their is a cable brake). No current through the heating element/motor means that the neutral wire would have the same voltage as the live wire. And remember that the neutral was connected to chassie…?
So, ground is a cable that’s must never ever be connected to a live wire, and if it happens to be connected by one fault, it will trip the fuse. Now, you can have two faults and get to a dangerous situation (ground wire broke AND lose wire!) .
I hope this explains it. It’s not due to physics, but to handling all sorts of faults.
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