Ultimately I would like to know is the only scenario the white wire is hot is due to a switch loop or a reason white might be hot or black is neutral.
I had three wires nm romex (14/2) going into a single outlet. I’m an idiot and did not take a mental picture of what was what before taking two wires off the terminal screws and four wires out the backstabs before replacing with gfci outlet. Rookie mistake I’m sure.
I Temporarily wire nutted the blacks together and the whites together and the grounds.
After some time I realized I’m so dumb for not checking the outlet before hand like I usually do and copy it. The breaker has not tripped and the whites are not hot. But I recently had a question on stack for why a white wire would be wire nutted to black and learned about the switch loop. So I’m paranoid I maybe just created a fire hazard considering there could be other scenarios where white should hot in which case my wiring could be wrong or the black should be white (I would think that’s bad practice but I’m still learning so can’t say for sure).
Thinking through this I can’t think of any reason an outlet might have a white and a black mixed where white is hot or black is switched or some combination for these three wires. The outlet is not controlled by a switch that I am aware of for the five years I’ve lived here but you never know.
I’m sure there has to be some electrician or experienced DIYer that has done this and there is some method to deduce what is what without tracing the wires through the wall.
