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new house- no ground

A

AMoody

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 14, 2010
Messages
167
I just moved into a new place and none of the outlets are grounded. I got a circuit tester and discovered that I also can't get a ground off of any of the faceplate screws. I live in the south east and brown outs are fairly common. Would a quality UPS provide me with some degree of protection for my components?

Anyone know how much its likely to cost to have an electrician come in and run a ground for one or two outlets (exterior walls)? I am renting and I doubt I will be able to get the landlord to rewire the house.
 
Adding a ground that works is easy.. per code is a little more difficult.. You can simply ran a wire outside & use a copper grounding rod pounded into the dirt right outside or if you have a crawlspace & copper or steal pluming that works to ground to using a grounding block.
 
A ups will be just as helpless without the ground as a regular surge protector. A line conditioner with highgrade floating ground protection might help a bit, but that is a pretty penny at the least. To get an electrician to come out could be a decent dime too though.

South-east, what state. Find out if its a right to work state or not, reason this matters is simply based on the cost of doing business and the rates he/she will charge. For example...Oregon union electrician is likely to cost 75+ an hour - non union around 65, but in Tennessee that same electrician could only be around 45-50 an hour.

Cost of wiring + cost of a grounding rod (copper/brass) + around 2hrs of work if its a simple job.

Good luck.
 
I will look into having a grounding rod installed on monday- it looks like maybe I can get an outlet grounded for less than $500
 
AlecMoody said:
I will look into having a grounding rod installed on monday- it looks like maybe I can get an outlet grounded for less than $500
Click to expand...

If you pay anywhere near 500 to get an outlet on an exterior wall grounded then your getting ripped off.. Including the rod it should be about 100 - 150 bucks total..
 
If you are renting then the place should have to be up to code for the person to even be able to rent it legally.

I would contact the person you are renting it from and see what they have to say. If they will not get it fixed, then I would check into the local laws having to do with rental properties.

As for getting the wiring gounded, to do it the proper way (per code), you would have to have at least all the outlets on the circuit you want grounded to be rewired or at least have a single ground wire run to all of them and have it grounded at the fuse box/circuit breaker box.

The reason I know this is because the house I bought had horrible wiring and only one of the rooms had any ground whatsoever. I have since rewired about 30% of the house. It is getting rewired room by room as I remodel.

If you really want to hire somebody to fix it for you, make sure they are licensed AND insured. Have it inspected afterwards to make sure it was done properly. (I do not trust contractors at all for the most part - they will generally try to get away with doing as little as possible).

If you really only want to worry about one or two outlets and want to do it the cheapest way possible, go buy a grounding rod, grounding clamp, and some 14 or 12 guage solid wire from Home Depot. Find out where something comes through the wall or through the floor (if you have a crawl space), and put the grounding rod as close as you can. Run the wire through the wall or through th floor and then to each outlet you want grounded.

Another way is if you have coax cable... like for a cable modem, it will be grounded. You can simply buy a splitter or a splice with a ground screw on it and hook that onto the coax as the coax should be grounded. Then run the wire from the ground screw to the outlet. I actually did this for a while when I was rewiring stuff because the outlet I had my computer plugged into was not grounded at the time.
 
Grounding just one outlet will actually make an install more dangerous as mixing properly grounded and ungrounded equipment in one room gives both the potential for the ungrounded stuff to become live in the event of a fault. Then if you touch that peice of equipment at the same time as a properly grounded peice of equipment the current flowing through you will have a good return path.

Similar but less severe problems apply if everything is grounded but it is grounded to multiple independent grounds.
 
I have a coax cable running into this room and I just tested it for ground with my circuit tester and its not lighting up. Maybe its not connected to anything since the cable connection hasn't been turned on yet.
 
Do you have metal-clad cabling? Ie, if you look at the electric cable going out from the box, is does it look like a metal pipe or is it just plastic? Is there any sign of a ground wire coming into the box (look closely - it might be clipped off)?
 
The outlet boxes are metal but I'm still trying to figure out what the cable is wrapped in. The really old stuff is likely metal, right?

Good news is the cable internet was installed today and there is a good ground off of the coax. Anyone here take issue with me grounding 2 outlets (no other outlets or electronics nearby) by running 14-2 wire from the tab on the outlet adapter to a grounding box on the coax? My cable modem is on the same coax line- is that going to cause problems?.
I figure even if this doesn't provide ideal surge protection it is better than nothing for electrical noise.
 
If you own the place, get an electrician to rewire it. It will be worth it in the long run.

If you rent, get the owner to do it. Its shocking that they wouldn't have upgraded the electricity yet considering all the fire and shock hazards that they could be setting themselves up for. Considering what "old" wiring is like and what most electronics need today, its a bit unrealistic to not have grounded outlets put in.

Houses with old cloth or daisy chained wiring often cause electronics, fridges, and other components to fail early because in the process of daisy chaining, they have made it easily possible for the polarity of the plugs to change depending on what else is plugged in or turned on. Anything that is polarity sensitive, even without a ground, is at risk and presents a hazard.

Shame on you though for not putting such an important qualification on your list of "must haves" when looking at places. Grounded outlets and breakers are a top item on my list when apartment/house hunting (I move a bit). I often bring a socket tester with me when viewing places to let the landlords know that its important to me and why... as I test almost every outlet in the house to make sure they are all grounded and wired properly (you would be shocked how many places are incorrectly wired and dont want you to know). If some unwitting shower gets uneasy with me about my testing, I let them know why and what the importance is to both myself AND TO THEM if the wiring is wrong. Some get upset, but thats a pretty good indication that they are covering up something or I dont want to deal with that landlord. Seriously, with all the electronics guys like us tend to run in our homes, its on the "must have" list when looking at places. Now you know for next time.
 
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