"KOA" wrote in message
news:YVIaf.30986$bb3.8507@trnddc02...
In my house, none of the outlets are grounded, although they are all three
prong. I discovered an outlet which appears to have a grounding prong
broken
off in it. I can't tell for sure. All I know is I can't plug in any
three-prong plug.

Is it safe to try to just yank the prong out with pliers?

Or should I just install one of those plug adapters, which convert 3-prong
to 2-prong??

The problem is, there is no way for me to remove the box, since I can
never
be certain if I have turned off power to the outlet, even if I shut off
the
circuit. The problem is a voltage detector cannot be plugged into the
outlet
to confirm no power, since it is 3-prong. Could I just use a multimeter
instead to detect voltage? Or use a circuit finder to verify that both
outlets go to the same circuit? I can't shut off the entire house either,
since some of my circuits might run through my neighbor's circuits, so I
would have to shut off his power too.

Thanks for any help.

Call someone that knows about electricity. To test the circuit you can
always plug in a two wire plug device such as a lamp. The ground prong
normally carries no current. If you were sure it is actually the ground
plug, you could just pull out the broken piece with some insulated pliers.
If you have a multimeter or one of the neon bulb circuit testers with leads
you can also use that to verify you have the outlet circuit turned off at
the fuse/breaker panel.