No ground wiring

[EdT]

My son just purchased a "distressed" house in a great area for a great price, but it needs some work which we are hard at. One of the unpleasant discoveries is that it has two wire w/o ground throughout (built 1969) and the breaker box is not like modern ones in that there is not a separate hook up area for ground wires (there are none). Three 2/0 (or so) conductors come from the meter base and into the box. No separate ground

1. Short of cutting up all the walls, Is there any reasonable Way to provide ground to the ungrounded outlets? Don't think I'll mess with the lites. External ground wires running back to the main panel?

2. There is some new wiring with ground in the house and both the neutral and the ground wires are connected to a common termination in the box. While I suspect this is not to code, is it dangerous? Will GFIs work on a circuit set up like this?

 

[chickenhauler]

1 - having loose grounds running around is probably more confusing/potentially dangerous than leaving as is.

2- GFI's won't work without a ground. Connecting the ground to the common is more dangerous that just leaving it unconnected.

I'd update the entrance and main box first, then as he remodels rooms, replace the wiring.

 

[mrb]

2- GFI's won't work without a ground. Connecting the ground to the common is more dangerous that just leaving it unconnected.

not true. GFCIs dont even know if the ground is present or not. Using GFCI receptacles is an acceptable method of replacing 2 prong receptacles with grounded receptacles where there is no equipment ground present. They have to be labeled as such.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

I'm assuming the house is wired with Romex, in which case you CANNOT run a separate ground wire from receptacles to the panel. Code requires that all wires be bundled together when cable is used, you would have to pull out each section of Romex and pull in new sections, which might not be that hard.

I grew up in a 1956 house with no grounds and I'm still alive. I think this is mostly much ado about nothing. How many devices in the house actually have three prongs on them? Few.

You could add or replace just the circuits in areas like the kitchen or living room where electronic items with three prong is common.

As far as the panel and grounds, all the power company gives you is three wires. The neutral and gound is one in the same wire until the power reaches the main disconnect, where current code dictates four wire from that point onward. If your main disconnect is in the panel (most likely) then you do not need and are not required to have a separate ground bar anyhow.

Charles

 

[KenC]

not true. GFCIs dont even know if the ground is present or not. Using GFCI receptacles is an acceptable method of replacing 2 prong receptacles with grounded receptacles where there is no equipment ground present. They have to be labeled as such.

X2 on this response. The GFCIs will come with little stick on labels that state "no ground". Code specifies that gfcis used on circuits like yours must be so labeled. But they work fine as the mechanism they use compares hot to neutral current. If a difference is found, they trip. Ground is not part of the measurement or function.

 

[rlwhitetr3b]

Just do NOT put three prong outlets in without GFCIs or replacing the wiring. The GFCIs can be used to protect down stream outlets, but they have to be labeled no ground also.

 

[Falcon67]

You could also get up in the attic and give the wall drops a yank. There is some change some may not be stapled. Those could be used to pull back modern wire. If the walls are interior, it's not too difficult to fish new wire to the boxes in many cases. Check the outside walls - you may or may not be able to run a fish down those depending on the roof line. It IS possible to fish a wire in an insulated wall - done that, but its more luck than skill LOL. We looked at several 60s age houses here over the years and several do not have anything in the outside walls. Usually the brick houses.

 

[gumbudah]

I had knob and tube woth a 60 or so amp panel. I replaced the panel and managed to redo most of the circuits on the main floor by running them thru the basement. I still have some old wire in a couple rooms bu that,ll go when i remodel those rooms. Id suggest doing the same. Replace the panel and service first and go from there.

 

[89GLH]

We were told it would be easier to hook up new service to the house, and run it ourselves. If your son bought the house and it can't be lived in yet, whats the problem with hooking up 1 circuit at a time? He wont be in more than 1 room at once anyway. Lights first, then outlets, etc.

 

[EdT]

Thanks for all the useful responses. I didn't realize that GFCI's would work w/o ground. We are replacing the wire with modern wire as we work our way through the rework, but will probably limit those changes to the areas suggested above. Not many lamps and clock radios with three prong plugs. WRT the service panel, there is no separate ground area as there is a modern box, so the grounds that there are are just hooked up on the same terminal bars as the neutral wires. It looks kinda odd, but electrically I think its the same as having a separate area for the grounds and the neutral since they are, as I recall, electrically the same. That is, the terminal bars are electrically joined in the box. As far as I can tell, there is no ground rod outdoors with a #6 solid conductor going to it. Is it advisable to add that or not?

 

[aandpdan]

If you don't have an outside service disconnect it is common for the grounds and neutrals to share a common bar. On a subpanel they need to be separated and you can usually purchase a ground bar kit to do that.

Adding a ground rod would bring you up to code. Most areas require you to install two of them with a six foot separation.

What panel do you have?

 

[chickenhauler]

X2 on this response. The GFCIs will come with little stick on labels that state "no ground". Code specifies that gfcis used on circuits like yours must be so labeled. But they work fine as the mechanism they use compares hot to neutral current. If a difference is found, they trip. Ground is not part of the measurement or function.

I stand corrected. I haven't done much retro-fitting of GFI's. I just remember having an issue with the way a box was wired with one in an old rental. Perhaps it was sharing a common, or something to that extent - but it tripped every time a light was turned on, and I remember having to fish another wire into it.

 

[bassman]

in 69, they did use grounded RX. I've seen many older homes with geounded RX, but they didn't bring the gr wire into the box, they wrapped it around the outside of the box and connected it there. Loosen one of the RX clamps inside one of you're rec boxes and see if you can pull that RX into the box a little so you can see if there is a gr wire comeing out of the sheathing. If there is, its connected to the outside of the box and you're in bussiness, you can connect a grounding type rec, just make shure you ground it to the box

 

[EdT]

It's a Cutler Hammer breaker box and the breakers are still readily available which is good since a couple of them were dead. The wire is definitely 12-2 (for the most part) w/o ground. The original boxes in the walls are the miserably small little modular metal ones where you can take the box apart and add another for, say, a quad outlet. I think they are a PITA to work with since they seem too small. Anyhow those are getting replaced to as the opportunity comes up. Lots of "flying splices" twisted and taped and I don't think there are 25 staples in the whole house. I'll box the splices for now so there will be a few blank-cover boxes in the crawl space. Also found a few wires to nowhere going from an outlet box, through the floor where they are neatly cut off and taped up. Of course, the raw end of the hot lead was sticking out through the tape. Who knows? Half the fun of this kind of project is trying to figure out "what were they thinking??" Anyhow, thanks for all the input. I can use all the help I can get.

 

[TWX]

You could also get up in the attic and give the wall drops a yank. There is some change some may not be stapled. Those could be used to pull back modern wire. If the walls are interior, it's not too difficult to fish new wire to the boxes in many cases. Check the outside walls - you may or may not be able to run a fish down those depending on the roof line. It IS possible to fish a wire in an insulated wall - done that, but its more luck than skill LOL. We looked at several 60s age houses here over the years and several do not have anything in the outside walls. Usually the brick houses.

I second pulling on the wiring in the attic or wherever it runs to see if it can be used to pull through new wire. I've done that quite a but with low-voltage (ethernet, phone, Coax) and it should theoretically work with high voltage too.

MAKE SURE THE POWER IS OFF BEFORE TRYING THIS!

 

[eriksalo]

The previous responses have well covered your options. I thought it might be useful to talk about what ground is used for.

Ground is a good thing but it is only a safety device in case of equipment failure. In electrical devices with three wires (hot, neutral, ground), the idea of the ground wire is that it will provide a return path for electricity in the case that the hot wire (black wire) shorts out on the case. If the hot wire shorts out on a metal case (for example) with no ground, the case will then be "hot" and a person will be electrocuted if they touch the "hot" case since they will look like ground to those electrons looking for some place to go.

The area where ground really helps is in the case of that type of failure. Implementing GFCI w/o ground will provide much of the same protection so it's a good idea.

Many new electrical devices are what's called "double insulated." There are three classes of appliance and the ones known as "Class II" have the property that a short will not make the outside of the device "hot." Double insulated devices generally don't have ground wires at all.