What is the purpose of a neutral line in electrical wire?

Question

What does a neutral do?

In: 150

Answer 1

Electricity works like a water wheel. It’s not that the electricity is consumed by your light, it’s that the electricity flowing THROUGH you light causes power. The electricity in the overhead wires REALLY wants to go to the ground, but it can’t get there. The hot wire to your light let’s that electricity get to the light. The neutral goes, eventually, to the ground. The electricity goes from the power lines, down the hot wire to your light, through it (powering it) and down the neutral to the ground. Electricity can’t flow if it doesn’t have somewhere to go. Comes in on the hot, goes out on the neutral.