Re: Grounding the receptacle boxes in an old house

Rich Wales wrote:
Earlier, I wrote:

> > My mother's house was built in the early 1950's. . . . My
> > tentative conclusion, at this point, is that the [electrical]
> > boxes are probably not grounded. . . . Is it reasonable for
> > me to conclude, at this point, that the only safe way to get
> > these outlets properly grounded would be for an electrician
> > to ground the electrical boxes . . . by connecting a ground
> > wire to each box, then routing all the ground wires through
> > the floor and grounding them all?

"Speedy Jim" replied:

> This will be an onerous task, drilling up/down to each box and
> working in the crawl space. Is it reasonable to expect to find
> an electrician willing or having the time (where you live)?

I honestly have no idea. I haven't tried to find an electrician to
do this (or any other) job for my mom yet.

> What appliances will you be using that have some compelling need
> to be grounded in those rooms?

I was thinking primarily of consumer electronics -- but I was also
thinking about the bathrooms, where I understand the current code
requirement (and the best practice for safety) is to use GFCI outlets.

The objective I had in mind was that every outlet in the house ought
to be a properly grounded, suitably protected three-prong outlet --
which I understood meant that the boxes all needed to be grounded
(since installing a 3-prong outlet with an open ground is totally
unacceptable).

> If you're concerned with shock hazard from touching some
> appliance, would a GFC recept protect as well? They can be
> retrofitted even where the box is not grounded.

Hmmm. I didn't realize a GFCI receptacle could legitimately be used
even without a ground. So, in that case, I suppose we could simply
ignore the fact that the electrical boxes aren't grounded and replace
every receptacle in the house with a GFCI receptacle -- and although
this would cost a couple hundred dollars, it would cost a lot less
than having an electrician come out and ground all the boxes for us.
Is that what you're suggesting as an alternative to having the boxes
grounded?

Rich Wales richw@xxxxxxxxx http://www.richw.org


Yes, that's exactly what I was suggesting. And if you GOOGLE search
http://groups.google.com/
on this newsgroup and alt.home.repair, there have been numerous
threads about GFCI and not grounded boxes for guidance.

You *may* find that the bath outlet boxes _are_ grounded.
It was common in the 50's and earlier to be careful to ground those
boxes and also the bath switch boxes. Adding GFCI recepts in the
baths would be a very big plus.

Stuffing a GFCI recept into an old box is not always easy
as they are often cramped and the wires may be too short to
work with. Just so you know...

Jim
.