On May 25, 9:45*am, Si wrote:
we have a number of older 2 pin electrical wall sockets in our
victorian home and most of my appliances are 3 pin. can i just switch
them to 3 pin sockets? is there a problem with doing that?

Short answers; yes & yes

Yes, you can change out your 2 wire receptacle to 3 wire receptacles.

But unless there is a grounding conductor present in the boxes or the
boxes are themselves grounded, the new 3 wire receptacles will be
ungrounded. This will be misleading; looking like a grounded
receptacle but not really being one.

Re-wiring is an option but a fair amount of work.

One way to improve the safety of the installation but at a fraction of
the effort is to install GFI's and label them "no equipment ground";
which was allowable under previous codes but I'm not sure about
current code.


cheers
Bob