Electric in a house...?
Question:I just bought a home and all of the outlets are 2 prong, only. (Built in 1955) The inspector said that the home isn't grounded...
To make the home grounded, do all outlets have to be 3 prong?
What exactly does "grounded mean?" Is it bad that the home isn't?
Is it illegal?
Answers:
Grounded means the third prong is a safety wire that bonds the equipment to earth. God forbid there is a short in your blender, lets say. Instead of you getting the shock the ground takes it.
The outlets with three prongs are grounded. To ground all of them, they have to have 3 prongs and the ground going back to the panel.
As for the legality of it, your house is grandfathered in. You are not required to ground them unless you renovate.
grounding around here is one wire grounded to a water pipe, the other is a rod drove down into the ground outside. for which a ground wire is ran to from you main. I figure you have 100 amp circuit. I would upgrade to to 200 amp. Just bye replacing to a three prong will not do. You only have two wires,to existing ciruits, you need three to ground. so you need to pull some wire and all that good stuff.
It is not a problem in most of the rooms of the house. But outlets in the kitchen, bathrooms, garage, laundry area, and outdoors should be not only grounded but equipped with ground fault interrupters. This is a safety issue, and should be attended to.
Grounded would certainly be safer. Check to see if your electrical boxes are metal, most likely in older houses, and if the wire is running through metal conduit. If so then you can install three prong outlets and use a short piece of wire to connect the ground screw on the outlet to the box itself. You have to make sure that the conduit goes all the way back to the breaker box or fuse box though. This should ground the outlets safely. If you have any doubts, you can always ask an electrician to have a look.
You are asking some very sensible questions but ones that are not easily answered in a few words. There is an excellent web site that addresses your problem. At least it is a good place to start. It is:
http://www.handymanusa.com/articles/grou...
Good luck !
It is not illegal to have 2 prong ungrounded outlets. It is, however, considered sub-standard for modern house electrical needs.
Yes, for the house to have a grounded electrical system, all the outlets have to be 3 prong - that third prong is hooked up to a wire that is directly connected to the house ground. Typically the electric company or an electrician will drive a very large (minimum 8ft) copper rod into the ground outside your house near the electric meter. Then a very thick wire is run from the ground rode to your electrical box. From there all the outlets 3rd prong is linked to this ground via the main fuse/breaker box.
There is a problem - if you only have 2 prong outlets, the chances are very good that the electrical wiring in your house does not have a third wire in it for the dedicated ground. This means you have to replace ALL the wiring in your house with cable that has 3 wires in it.
Simply changing your outlets to 3 prong without connecting the ground for the 3rd prong IS illegal.
Some time after 1955, the Electrical Gods decided that to make homes safer, there needed to be a third wire that is grounded the same as the white wire. In fact, the new wire was connected to the panel ground terminal just as the white wire was. In their infinite wisdom, all was good. Except for the millions of homes all ready built with the two wire system. If you add on to the the house you will be required to meet standards now in force. Until that time, you will be unconvinced by some plugs not fitting your two pronged outlets. There is a fix without rewiring the house. Visit the electrical department at Lowe's or Home Depot for an in depth explanation
The bare ground in a 3 wire grounded system is all connected in the electrical panel than a ground wire is run to a cold water pipe updates too the NEC requires a 2nd grounding means via a 8 foot ground rod driven into the ground as for the outlets you are kinda stuck if the house wiring is only the 2 conductor kind ie the older type what is called romex which was only 2 wire the black (hot) and the white wire (neutral) other wise you will have to replace all the wiring with the newer type romax 3 conductor wire along with a up grade to your electrical service which includes your breaker panel as well as the meter box and the riser to where it connects to the power company hope this helps
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