No but you could pull a bare ground around to each box. How's the access?

--
Steve Barker


"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Bob F wrote:
"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...

All right, I'm feeling mildly dumb and a little sheepish not to mention
slightly sick here... just bought a house for the first time less than
a month ago, and knew that it had some minor wiring "issues" but now
that I'm assessing what I have it appears that there are bigger issues
than previously anticipated. Anyway, here's the deal. House is a two
story colonial with full basement, built late 1940's.
It appears that throughout the house wherever the wiring was
hidden behind plaster it was run in NM not BX and there is no grounding,
period.


It's also possible that the wiring could be knob-and-tube in a house of
that age.

Bob


No, it's definitely some early type of NM, although it may not be
officially designated as such. There's two plastic-insulated conductors
(that must be a pretty early use of same; as far as automotive stuff goes
I believe the transition was made about 1955 - at least it was for
Studebaker; I have a '55 coupe which (fortunately) has plastic insulation
on the wiring) in what appears to be a tar-impregnated cloth jacket. But
no ground.

I really, REALLY don't want to have to rewire two complete circuits,
although at this point it kind of looks like I'm going to have to. I
might even have to involve a *gasp* electrician due to the magnitude of
what this project looks like it's shaping up to be, which makes my
Y-chromosome cower in shame. I suppose I could just install new
non-grounded receptacles ahd that would be technically correct, although
then I'm back where I started, as there's computer equipment on the second
floor, and a UPS theoretically should have a ground... also would feel
better if the stuff in the bathroom were grounded (although I was thinking
of rewiring the bathroom anyway to meet current code with a dedicated
circuit, GFCI, etc. which is somewhat doable as there's a small chase
going down to the basement behind the bathtub, and an access panel, so
it's "just" a matter of getting a cable from behind the bathtub up into
the attic and then back down to the light switch...)

I suppose it's not acceptable to cheat and ground stuff to the nearest
water pipe...

nate


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