Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Wiring

I have an old house and I was going to replace an old ceiling fixture. When I looked at it, neither the fixture nor the house wiring was color coded. How I determine which wire is hot?
Thanks

Spend $15 at your local home center on a non-contact voltage "tick" tester. It looks like a fat pen and has a plastic tip. When you hold it next to the hot wire (with the power on, and the wall switch on), it will chirp and flash. It's kind of fun to use and very useful, especially in older homes without color-coded wires and with out grounds.

There's one other way if you have a voltmeter or neon circuit tester. You can use your body as a ground. Hold one probe with your fingers and touch the other probe to one of the wires. Of course, this could be quite dangerous if your tester is faulty and has an internal short, but should be safe if you are careful and the tester is sound.

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Okay this realy is not a reply to your thread it is a question. How do I post a question on this thing. I went to turn off my fan last night and it did not turn off, I then pulled one more time hoping that would work and the chain came off. This morning I tried to take the thing apart only to have a few (okay more than a few) things come out. Two wires came apart, a white one and a black one. I understand that the black one conects to the other black one, but the white one does not conect like the black one, oh these two that came apart are attached to the lighting part and the other black one is conected to the fan part. So where does the white one on the lighting part go. There are several white ones but they all have caps on with more than one wire attached to the same cap. So can anyone help me out here. The booklet sure does not tell me what I need to know:eek:

Go to the list of threads in the category you are interested in and click on "new post".