Electrician Question on grounding outlets

One of the things that was in my Inspection Objection for selling my house was that there are outlets throughout my house that are not grounded. Digging around I noticed some outlets showed they were grounded some did not. After comparing the two, the grounded outlets are grounded to the metal outlet box. Apparently when whoever remodeled, they replaced the metal electrical box with the blue plastic box throughout the common area (living room, hallway). The Romex is 3 wire but they cut the ground wire back. It is still accessible if need be. But when I spliced into that ground cable and wired everything up it still showed an "open ground".

Is there a way to ground these boxes? I know I can replace them all with GFCI outlets but Id rather not spend $100 on outlets.

Thanks again guys!

No good way without a ground wire. Can you get to the other end of that romex and hook it up to a ground?

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Originally Posted by merl

No good way without a ground wire. Can you get to the other end of that romex and hook it up to a ground?

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You know, looking at the breaker box, it looks like it is grounded. I will run out and take a picture.

I'm no electrician but it looks like all the grounds are hooked up.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7396/9...160a350e_c.jpg

But here the green "ground" wire is just going to a single connector, not actually grounded (I think)
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2851/9...08495f18_c.jpg

Looks to me the grounds and neutrals are bonded in that box .... ( ie going to the same place)


as for still seeing some open grounds.. not all boxes are single runs.. IE say on one wall you have 3 outlet boxes... those will all be one circut and unless the grounds are tied togetehr thru them all it wont go all the way back to the box.


also without a ground that gets to ground ( ie open) a GFCI is pointless as it wont work correctly.

So much for workmanship like manner in that circuit can........ I don't see nearly enough bare #12 ground wires comming into that can, or you have a small house.

If you want an licensed electrician to take a look / fix things for you, PM me your name and number and I will give it to a couple of them at work that go side work.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

So much for workmanship like manner in that circuit can........ I don't see nearly enough bare #12 ground wires comming into that can, or you have a small house.

If you want an licensed electrician to take a look / fix things for you, PM me your name and number and I will give it to a couple of them at work that go side work.

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We will see what they say on our counter for the Inspection Objection. I told them I wasnt going to fix it but i would atleast install 3 pronged outlets. The house is pretty small 3 bed 1 bath. About 1100 sqft. Dont know if that box is still small. All I know is i'm excited to move to a house that actually has room to wire a garage, and shed properly.

Damn.... If someone is making an issue out of a couple outlets not being grounded, I would assume they must not want to buy the house.
What if they found a squeaky door or a stain on the carpet.... You might have to pay them to take the house.

Don't install 3 prong outlets without a grounding conductor. That's taking a bad situation and making it worse. No inspector should approve that. The only way you can install 3 prong outlets with out fixing it (making sure a grounding conductor is present and connected in all recept boxes) is to install a gfci in the circuit. Either by adding a GFCI outlet at the first box in the circuit or replacing the breaker with a GFCI breaker.

A gfci will work with out a ground as it will monitor any unbalanced current between the hot and grounded (neutral) wire.

I argued with an inspector till I finally gave up that a gfci will work with out a ground wire. Here's Mike Holt's take on it backed up with a code reference.

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Under what condition can a two-wire receptacle be replaced with a three-wire receptacle, when no ground is available in the box?

A. Where no equipment bonding means exists in the outlet box, nongrounding-type receptacles can be replaced with [406.3(D)(3)]:

Another nongrounding-type receptacle.
A GFCI grounding-type receptacle marked "No Equipment Ground."
A grounding-type receptacle, if GFCI protected and marked "GFCI Protected" and "No Equipment Ground."
Note: GFCI protection functions properly on a 2-wire circuit without an equipment grounding (bonding) conductor, because the equipment grounding (bonding) conductor serves no role in the operation of the GFCI-protection device.

CAUTION: The permission to replace nongrounding-type receptacles with GFCI-protected grounding-type receptacles doesn't apply to new receptacle outlets that extend from an existing ungrounded outlet box. Once you add a receptacle outlet (branch-circuit extension), the receptacle must be of the grounding (bonding) type and it must have its grounding terminal grounded (bonded) to an effective ground-fault current path in accordance with 250.130(C).

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http://www.mikeholt.com/mojonewsarch...s~20050510.php

You will have to trace back to the point where that romex with the ground goes to. It is likely taped off of an existing outlet somewhere else and they didn't bother to hook up the ground at that point. About all you can do is start pulling off plates, tracing wires and hope that mister DIY that did this in the first place didn't hide junctions in the wall or the attic.

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Originally Posted by drift_g35

You know, looking at the breaker box, it looks like it is grounded. I will run out and take a picture.

I'm no electrician but it looks like all the grounds are hooked up.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7396/9...160a350e_c.jpg

But here the green "ground" wire is just going to a single connector, not actually grounded (I think)
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2851/9...08495f18_c.jpg

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Wow. that is embarrassing. Even the kid with two months in the trade did better than that.

And this is why
a. you should hire licensed electricians and pull a permit when you remodel. Not necessarily because the work is better (you may be able to do a fine job) but when you go to sell, you just hand them the inspection. All done to code, go away.

b. You should hire licensed electricians/plumbers/etc to do inspections. Cuz i guarantee my inspection objection would have come up with a lot more than just "ungrounded outlet". And now the problem is that you have to fix it, even if not for this guy, because now it's in writing and you have to reveal it to future buyers.

Hire an electrician, get it fixed correctly, cover your butt in the future.

^^ I gotta go with that.

Had the same problem with a house I sold 2 weeks ago; Inspection found a receptacle that had an open ground the garage. I did my best to find the problem but ended up calling my Electrician, he found a nicked ground wire in a J-Box somewhere in the circuit, cost me $100 & made the Buyers happy.

Just so you all dont think i'm the idiot, this was all done when I bought the house.

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Originally Posted by crashdown

Damn.... If someone is making an issue out of a couple outlets not being grounded, I would assume they must not want to buy the house.

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I don't think so. One of my neighbors bought the house and, I guess, didn't have a good electrical inspection. He just got done putting the drywall back in.

What is the age of the house. If it's old enough it shouldn't be expected that the outlets are grounded.

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Originally Posted by Marlin

Wow. that is embarrassing. Even the kid with two months in the trade did better than that.

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Yeah, but does the kid speak Spanish, senior? :D

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Originally Posted by Irving

What is the age of the house. If it's old enough it shouldn't be expected that the outlets are grounded.

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Unfortunately not any more. Same for paint. If it is in god shape it's ok. ANY signs of flaking, wear on loder houses they consider it lead paint. That's a whole other issue. dealt with it on 2 homes myself.

Regarding the ungrounded outlets, our guy ran a ground wire to the copper pipes. When tested checked out, done and sold.

Just drive a ground rod.... they are not that expensive and it is not hard to do ...


heck I do it 3-4 times a weekend .

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Originally Posted by clublights

Just drive a ground rod.... they are not that expensive and it is not hard to do ...


heck I do it 3-4 times a weekend .

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From his pictures it appears that there is a ground wire running to a rod. My guess is you use just messed up the wiring on the open grounded outlet. If the outlet on each side is OK then it's just a simply wiring mistake.

It seems like you want to know where the other end of the ground wire is going for the wires that are chopped off in the boxes, find them, and ground them.
You can trace the ground wire, and see if it is connected or find to where it goes.

If you want to trace the wiring, here is a reasonably priced ($35) tool from Home depot that does a nice job of tracing.

I have used these a number of times for all types of cabling.

The nice thing is that they can help you locate the route in the wall/ceiling the wiring is traveling, or help determine where a "break" is located.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-B...9#.UkM0VhCE7wo

Attachment 34363

Other methods are available to test and trace as well.

Best of luck.

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Originally Posted by Irving

What is the age of the house. If it's old enough it shouldn't be expected that the outlets are grounded.

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Depending on when the remodel work was done, it should have been done to that year's code.
As far back as I can recall, outlets were to be grounded.

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Originally Posted by SideShow Bob

Depending on when the remodel work was done, it should have been done to that year's code.
As far back as I can recall, outlets were to be grounded.

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'72-'73 sticks out for some reason. My sisters house was built in that timeframe, it has grounded outlets. Most every pre '70 house I've been in has had two prong.