Electrical Work

[Glenn9999]

Does anyone have any background in electrical work that could give me some advice on doing something?

I need to try and get two or three outlets grounded in the simplest & cheapest way possible so they can work well with any surge protector/UPS that's out there. The obvious is to install 3-prong plugs and run ground wires, but is there anything that would be less involved that would work out equally well?

Or if anyone knows a good site that they can point me to that talks about these matters and maybe will allow me to get enough knowledge in home electrical repair to be able to support my computer knowledge in terms of hardware?

[dirtwarrior]

You have to have 3 prongs. The best ground is going to earth. You can get a ground rod at a electric supply pound it in the ground (dont pierce gas, water, or sewer). Get some good quality grounding cable and ground the receptacle. Ground the ground wire to this.

HINT shortest ground is best ground.

[puntoMX]

Or use water tubing (existing). Sometimes it’s hard to smack a 1 to 1.5 meter copper pin into the ground with a diameter of 12-15mm .

By the way, you have a crap system here in America when you want good grounding...

[dirtwarrior]

I thought going to earth is the best ground

[puntoMX]

Yes, when you reach the ground water level. But I think it’s okay to have less then 75 Ohm resistance. The water tube option is for people that live in apartments or places where it´s not easy to get a pin into the ground, most of the time the water system is connected to earth also.

[submix8c]

being slightly knowledgeable on this subject... kee-rect on all counts! be careful when changing the wall plugs... best to remove the fuse / throw the breaker (the right one, natch)... and it might be nice to purchase a "phase checker" (looks like a USB stick for a wall socket - cheap); tells whether you got the wiring right (important in sound engineering)... not actually necessary, but a good idea...

[NOTS3W]

Before you start running additional wires (how are you going to get the new ground wire into the outlet box?), you ought to check out a few things. In some older buildings, the in-wall wiring is BX cable and the metal jackets of those cables are physically attached to the metal outlet boxes and to the earth ground at the circuit breaker panel or fuse box. Metal conduit works the same way. The box is attached to the conduit which is attached to the earth ground. You may already have a grounded box and only need to attach a ground wire to it and your new 3-prong outlet to get a grounded outlet. What I would do is to buy a grounded outlet, a ground pigtail (green) wire and a little green clip to attach it to the box. Install the new outlet using the existing black and white wires and the new green one. Then get an inexpensive tester for $10 and see what you've got. The tester I'm thinking of looks like a three-prong electrical plug but has a set of LEDs that light up depending on how things are wired. If it indicates an open ground, then your boxes are not grounded. Some even have a button you can push to trip a ground fault outlet's internal circuit breaker.

That's how those little adapters that convert a two-prong outlet to a grounded receptacle work. The assumption is that the box is grounded, the 2-prong outlet is attached to the box with metal screws which extends the grounding to the frame of the outlet, the adapter is attached to the faceplate screw of the frame of the outlet and therefore, the adapter is grounded. Come to think of it, that would be an even easier test. Plug one of those adapters into the two-prong outlet and be sure to attach the tab to the faceplace screw. Now, plug in your tester and see if it indicates a properly wired grounded outlet. If so, then you can go with the grounding pigtail and replace the outlet.

If you have plastic boxes, that won't work because you have no place to attach the grounding pigtail wire (plastic won't serve as a ground no matter what kind of cable is in the walls) and the two-prong outlet attached to the plastic box won't be grounded for use with the adapter.

Of course, none of that is as good as attaching a 12 gauge bare copper wire to the grounding terminal of the new outlet and running it directly to a solid earth grounding point. What you need to create is a reliable solid path for the electricity to flow back to the earth in the event of some electrical failure. Technically, the white or common wire of an electrical circuit attaches to ground at the breaker panel. The ground wire is an added measure for safety.

If you do run your own ground, you'll have to find a way to get the wire into the box (so it can be attached to the new outlet) and to the earth ground. You could drill a hole in an outside wall behind an electrical box and run the wire outside then to a grounding rod. Or you might find a way to get the wire into an unfinished basement and look for a path to a grounding point there. None of that is easily done, but it's better than ripping the walls open to run new wires. Good luck if you're on a second floor. A lot of times, when heavy equipment is installed, a bare wire is attached to a water supply pipe because those pipes go into the ground like a grounding rod would. That assumes you have metal plumbing. But there are caveats. Sometimes, plumbing lines are intentionally isolated so that you can't just attach to the nearest copper pipe and assume you have a ground connection. Look at where the plumbing enters the house and attach at the point closest to the entry as you can. You can buy a simple clamp that fits around the pipe and has a screw to attach the ground wire.

Your local hardware store or home center should have plenty of books on how to do all of this. Another option is to post a question on the likes of forum.doityourself.com. I've had good luck getting answers to questions there.

Good luck.

[Glenn9999]

Before you start running additional wires (how are you going to get the new ground wire into the outlet box?), you ought to check out a few things.

The key is more to find out a cheaper/easier way to do it. For this project, I'd hate to get into something too involved. Which is why I thought I would ask. I figured from the start running ground wires would have to be a pre-requisite, but I wasn't sure if there would be a more straight-forward way.

Then get an inexpensive tester for $10 and see what you've got. The tester I'm thinking of looks like a three-prong electrical plug but has a set of LEDs that light up depending on how things are wired.

I have a surge suppressor with a LED that indicates a proper ground or not, and it indicates an improper or non-existent ground with these outlets. But I know what you're talking about, and have seen them before (may have to invest in one if I start to make a habit of doing projects like this).

Plug one of those adapters into the two-prong outlet and be sure to attach the tab to the faceplace screw. Now, plug in your tester and see if it indicates a properly wired grounded outlet. If so, then you can go with the grounding pigtail and replace the outlet.

That's what is being done with these outlets now. They are in metal boxes with regular wires (no metal tubing like you describe), so I would think it would be easy to run single insulated wire (outdoor wire) from each outlet to a ground source. In fact with this situation, since they are so close to the ground anyway, I'm considering making 0.5-1.0 meter metal stakes and just doing straight runs to the ground.

Your local hardware store or home center should have plenty of books on how to do all of this. Another option is to post a question on the likes of forum.doityourself.com. I've had good luck getting answers to questions there.

I know basically what needs to be done in theory (I found a few "how-to wire electrical outlet" pages). I guess the reason I'm asking is that I want to see how practical this is before I commit myself to doing it.

Edited December 27, 2007 by Glenn9999

[submix8c]

you-gottum, dude! go for it!

a final note (not relevant, but ...); just like a 9-volt battery, if you touch your tongue to both contacts, you get zapped. same thing for receptacles (assuming dumb enough to leave "live"; brother electrician did it all the time) - don't touch BOTH at the same time (oh, he was daring!).

happy grounding!

[Glenn9999]

I had another thought about this: since it seems to be a common enough problem that I keep running into (and expensive to solve if you follow most municipal electrical codes to the letter, I read), I wonder how practical, safe, etc it is to construct a box with an outlet. Then, rig a 2 prong cord for power and a separate ground wire to run out the window, etc, to the ground.

Of course, it's not much a concern I'm finding out since people are pretty much dumb to what not grounding an outlet does to a computer, or any electronic equipment plugged into it (not to mention rendering the surge protector plugged into it useless). So there's not much of a market or concern for such matters.