Super ghetto house electrical repair

Like I said.. I deal with theatre voltages daily... but it is amazing how often I catch people about to disconnect live the WRONG way.

Our hookups can be done with live power.. but you need to do it in the proper proceedure. Ground then the neutral and then the three phases.. Reverse that to disconnect.

If you do it the wrong way, going for the ground first when disconnecting, there is a VERY good chance you will find out exactly how good a ground the human body is (it is a VERY good ground) and at best, it will bite and throw you. Worst case scenereo, I saw a guy get his nylon jacket melted to his body.

Always wear cotten when working with electricity.

When we bought our house in 1976 (built in 1955), the kitchen and bathroom had grounded outlets but all the other outlets were not ground type. After some checking I discovered that all the boxes were metal. The boxes with grounded outlets had a ground wire running from the box to the water pipes in the basement and the outlets had a ground wire from the outlet to the box.

Over the years I have managed to run a ground wire from all the ungrounded boxes to the water lines and replace the non-grounded outlets with grounded ones.

About 10 years ago we did a bunch of renovation that included replacing the service panel. When they did that they put in a ground rod outside the house. When the inspector came to check the new panel I asked him about the "water pipe" grounds. After checking to make sure there was a "jumper" around the water meter he said he didn't have any problem with the ground set-up.

Trust me a GFCI needs no ground. I monitors the neutral not the ground wire. It monitors the white wire not the bare,or green wire. This why when you test a GFCI that has a ground wire on it,and you test with a wiggy from hot to ground it trips the GFCI. It does this because it sees a load traveling from the hot,but not back through the neutral,and sees this as a possible electrical hazard. That is why on a GFCI breaker the white or neutral runs through the breaker,and not the ground. There are millions of houses out there with no ground in the wiring method,and I stand by my statement that this is just fine.

Chris

I think I missed typed a few things here. I was wondering why he needed the ground,because it sounded like he thought it was a current carrying wire under normal circumstances which it is not. It is mearly a safety wire,and will not cause a piece of equipment that works normal from burning up. It does however provide a secondary path to the earth incase there is a fault. I agree that they are needed,but my point is there are many applications where they are not there,and the systems work just fine. I think he should just pull a new romex,or MC/BX from one known good receptacle to the one he is having issue with. It shouldn't take too long,and I could probably do it with access through the basement or attic in less than a half hour. I agree that grounds are needed,and my license requires more bonding,and grounding than you could believe,but if he is relying on this ground as a current carrying conductor than I think he has more troubles than he is letting on. Figure out why this wire is carrying current,and then you will find your problem. It shouldn't be carrying anything at all unless you have a fault.

The first house I bought was built in 1896, and wired probably in the 30s. 3 stories high, and ran on 2 screw-in fuses with an exposed knife switch as a disconnect. Knob/tube all the way.

Talk about a nightmare!

Mazdax605:

Gameboy never said anything about a load on the ground. His concern was about ungrounded and overloaded circuits with electronics. While I don't question your qualifications or license, I think you missed a lot in the original post.

GameboyRMH wrote: So long story short: My house has a circuit with a bad ground line. Stuff works fine on it but I know it's an accident waiting to happen. But, since nothing's on fire yet, my parents don't want all the hassle of breaking into the walls to fix it. I want to hook up a super grassroots HTPC I've been building and I don't want to risk it on there - I've had one computer blow a power supply on that circuit already. So, assuming all the ground wires in the different plugs are wired together but just not plugged into the ground, if I get a plug from the hardware store and wire up the ground plug to a grounding wire that goes out a window or something, that should provide grounding for the whole circuit right? I'm pretty sure this will work but I'm not that familiar with AC electrical systems so I'm looking for a second opinion.

I was much more keyed into the second paragraph where Gameboy evidenced that this is really not an area of expertise for him (with all due respect, GB).

Regardless of what kind of license you've got, I think it is a bad idea to advise someone who is inexperienced in this area to install an electrical safety device in a manner that is not in accordance with the codes, standard practices, or the manufacturer's installation instructions.

I'm a lot less concerned with an esoteric discussion of electrical theory than with basic personal safety.

I am a licensed commercial contractor, with years of experience in high voltage theatrical electrical as well as industrial and 3 phase applications. Who cares? This is the internet, and it is wise to instruct people in the proper methods, not questionable workarounds that they do not understand.

There's absolutely no reason an ungrounded outlet will damage a PC power supply. They do fail quite often (compared to other PC components anyway) and one failure shouldn't be considered proof of a bad outlet. None of the outlets in my house are grounded and I run a number of PCs without issue.

/PC tech with a fancy degree (who works on cars for a living now lolz)

I had the same fuse box on my old house. An entire house run to 4 fuses! As part of the purchase deal, the PO agreed to lower the asking price enough to allow me to afford a new service. After we moved in, the electrician arrived, walked in, saw the box, and uttered "Oh Jesus". I kid you not.

pinchvalve wrote: I had the same fuse box on my old house. An entire house run to 4 fuses! As part of the purchase deal, the PO agreed to lower the asking price enough to allow me to afford a new service. After we moved in, the electrician arrived, walked in, saw the box, and uttered "Oh Jesus". I kid you not.

Nice. Maybe I should set up a video camera for the electrician that will be coming by to give us an estimate LOL I'll just hide it right in the cabinet so we can see his face.

skruffy wrote: There's absolutely no reason an ungrounded outlet will damage a PC power supply. They do fail quite often (compared to other PC components anyway) and one failure shouldn't be considered proof of a bad outlet. None of the outlets in my house are grounded and I run a number of PCs without issue. /PC tech with a fancy degree (who works on cars for a living now lolz)

True, a properly working ungrounded outlet will not damage a PC power supply. But, without a ground, there are fewer ways to protect a PC from power spikes since most common surge suppressors depend on being grounded in order to be effective.

All I was trying to say,and I did poorly was that a bad ground on one outlet isn't the ned of the world,and should not cause any troubles with your equipment. I agree that it should be fixed if feasible,but I thought the original poster was thinking the ground was essential to making equipment work properly which it is not. The ground is really a personal safety system to provide a secondary path to earth aside from the neutral if there is a fault. I don't claim to be an expert(I have not been licensed that long 12 years),but I am an electrician,and know that the ground should never be carrying any current under normal conditions. Under these normal conditions the neutral carries a load. Now most systems have the ground,and neutral bonded together,but still the ground on your branch circuit should not be flowing anything at all. No ground on a branch circuit will not cause an overload,but poorly run circuits,and an imbalance will. Ground or not he has a larger problem in my opinion.

I guess maybe I missed the part about HTPC which I have no idea what that is,but still I stand by what I say that no ground on an outlet isn't the end of the world,I work in plenty of homes that have none,and there isn't any reason to believe they are fires waiting to happen.

I don't believe I told him to install anything against any code,as all I suggested was using a GFCI on the circuit which even with no ground is allowed,and will operate just fine. I guarantee the GFCI needs no ground to work properly,and I would almost bet you the instructions on the ones you get at the big box store,or even a normal electrical distributor will back me up.I think the common misconception is that the GFCI monitors the ground/bare/green wire,but it does not.

Chris

SVreX wrote: Mazdax605: Gameboy never said anything about a load on the ground. His concern was about ungrounded and overloaded circuits with electronics. While I don't question your qualifications or license, I think you missed a lot in the original post.

GameboyRMH wrote: So long story short: My house has a circuit with a bad ground line. Stuff works fine on it but I know it's an accident waiting to happen. But, since nothing's on fire yet, my parents don't want all the hassle of breaking into the walls to fix it. I want to hook up a super grassroots HTPC I've been building and I don't want to risk it on there - I've had one computer blow a power supply on that circuit already. So, assuming all the ground wires in the different plugs are wired together but just not plugged into the ground, if I get a plug from the hardware store and wire up the ground plug to a grounding wire that goes out a window or something, that should provide grounding for the whole circuit right? I'm pretty sure this will work but I'm not that familiar with AC electrical systems so I'm looking for a second opinion.

I was much more keyed into the second paragraph where Gameboy evidenced that this is really not an area of expertise for him (with all due respect, GB). Regardless of what kind of license you've got, I think it is a bad idea to advise someone who is inexperienced in this area to install an electrical safety device in a manner that is not in accordance with the codes, standard practices, or the manufacturer's installation instructions. I'm a lot less concerned with an esoteric discussion of electrical theory than with basic personal safety. I am a licensed commercial contractor, with years of experience in high voltage theatrical electrical as well as industrial and 3 phase applications. Who cares? This is the internet, and it is wise to instruct people in the proper methods, not questionable workarounds that they do not understand.

Federal Pacific (FPE) boxes are known for problems, mostly the Stab-Lok breaker boxes.

True, GFCI's monitor the neutral and do not require a ground to operate. Having said that, if something goes awry and the GFCI has a brainfart (more common than you might think) then that means the only protection left is the ground circuit. You'd still possibly get a nasty shock but assuming there's a ground circuit it will will have less resistance than your body, meaning the juice will take the path of least resistance.

Used to be, boxes etc were made of metal and these were then grounded to the house's plumbing. The theory was that if something shorted out in one of the boxes, the power would travel through the metal conduit to the plumbing and then to earth. Problem is, corrosion can raise the resistance plus if anyone has replaced any part of the metal pipes with plastic then your ground path is gone. So starting in the 1960's some new construction was done with 3 conductor wire: hot, neutral, ground.

The 1960's and 70's brought aluminum wiring into the picture. In and of itself, aluminum wiring is not a bad thing (that's what most transmission lines etc are made of). Corrosion of the terminals is though and that's where aluminum in hoses got its bad reputation. Corrosion = high resistance = wire acts like a stove element =

Jensenman wrote: Federal Pacific (FPE) boxes are known for problems, mostly the Stab-Lok breaker boxes.

Yeah, this one pre-dated the stab lok design. I don't trust it and I want it gone.
We have two electricians scheduled to come by Wednesday and give us estimates for upgrading the service and re-wiring all of the old stuff. I decided to dust off the AutoCAD and attempt to diagram the electricals, just for the hell of it. I have had the program for several years, it cam on a second hand computer I bought, but I have never opened it before this weekend. Here's the main floor of my house, I did the attic too but it's not as interesting to look at so I didn't post it. I did not have symbols for outlets and switches, so I used an x for a switch, an o for a 110 outlet and an O for the 220 outlets. The capital O looks like a rectangle though, the font is wonky.

for mad machine. who trims at 40 feet? you work with an opera or dance company?