ATOT Electricians: Got a question or two.

[Kaervak]

I've been wanting to rewire all the switches and electrical outlet's in my house for a while now. Took care of a few of the switches today, and got a 3 wire circuit analyzer to just check and see what was up with all the outlets. None of them are grounded and one of them has an open neutral. I can take care of the neutral but I'm not too sure what to do with the open grounds. Would running a copper wire from the grounding post on the new outlets to the metal box the outlets are in be sufficient? Or would I have to run a wire from the grounding post all the way to the main box? If anyone knows of any good resources to look stuff like this up, I'd appreciate that too. Thanks.

 

[morkinva]

Don't know of any online resources, but in newer construction there are three wires that run from the breaker box to each outlet: hot, neutral and ground. Then there is a wire that runs from the breaker box's ground terminal to earth ground, like a water pipe.

What I don't quite understand is that in the breaker boxes I've seen, the ground is tied to the white neutral wire. So why can't you tie the neutral in the switch box to the ground screw on the outlet? I'm sure it won't meet code, but it should work. The black wire goes to the brass screw, the white to the silver.

p.s. I'm obviously not an electrician

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Depends on how screwed up it is. You'll have to see where the grounds currently go and if the boxes are grounded.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

The reason for a difference between the neutral and ground is that you can have the benefit of a grounded case for safety, without current flowing through it's source for ground. There are GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) outlets that will trip a breaker if they detect any signifigant (40mA?) current through the ground wire in case the neutral and ground to connect for any reason.

 

[AlienCraft]

To be up to code, you will need to run that ground back to the fuse/circuit breaker box, where it will bond with the neutral. You can use #14 awg for 15 amp circuits and #12 for 20 amp circuits. Some people will tell you it can be smaller, but to properly protect , the grounding conductor needs to be able to handle the full current capability of the circuit, lest it act as a fuse during an incident.
I would use a green insulated wire and what are known as "pigtails" to do the connections. This is a short length of green wire with a green grounding screw. Be sure the grounds are either Green insulated, Bare wire, or marked with green electrical tape if another color of wire is used. This way any other person working on the boxes will know what each conductor is supposed to be.
Pigtails and Green wire nuts will allow you to make sure the ground is attached to both the outlet and the box.
Make sure you staple the ground wire securely no more than 8 inches from where it enters each box and no more than every 48" along any runs. The conductor does not really need protection from abrasion where it enters the box, as you WANT a connection between ground and the box, but it may raise some eyebrows, depending on who is doing the inspection, if you go to sell.
Some jurisdictions require a permit for ANY work that involves the panel. So if you may be selling, you may want to consider this.

HTH,
PM me if you need to.

Allen

 

[Kaervak]

Hmmm, I do believe I'm going to leave this to a friend of mine that's an electrician considering I don't want to screw this up and burn down the house. I assume the grounding for the outlets is the same for the light switches, because none of those are grounded either.