Electrician Question on grounding outlets

[drift_g35]

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!

[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?

[drift_g35]

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

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.


But here the green "ground" wire is just going to a single connector, not actually grounded (I think)

[clublights]

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.

[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.

[drift_g35]

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.

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.

[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.
What if they found a squeaky door or a stain on the carpet.... You might have to pay them to take the house.

[PSS]

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.

[PSS]

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

[PSS]

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.

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).

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