In ,
trader_4 typed:
On Friday, October 24, 2014 8:18:30 AM UTC-4, N8N wrote:
On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 6:44:06 PM UTC-4, TomR wrote:
"TomR" wrote in message
...
This question was posted in another forum by someone that I know
and I thought that I would try posting it here to get some
feedback on his behalf:
He wrote,
"In a house that has ungrounded, 2 prong outlets, with wiring in
good condition, is it acceptable (and allowed by current
electrical code) to run a separate ground wire from the outlets
back to the ground at the panel, in order to be able to replace
the 2 prong outlets with 3 prong outlets? Existing wiring is in
very good shape."
Thanks everyone. As I mentioned previously, I did read all of the
replies and passed on the info that I learned etc.
But, I decided to come back to this and post an additional message
because I just got done doing work on a house that I "indirectly"
own and which has mostly all 2-prong outlets where the "Existing
wiring is in very good shape" as in the original question. I
discovered that it has metal outlet boxes and all of the 2-prong
receptacles are in metal boxes that are grounded with a thin ground
wire that runs inside the same sheathed wire that contains the
black and white wires. So, I was able to switch out some of the
2-prong receptacles and replace them with regular 3-prong
receptacles that are grounded to the metal outlet box.
When you say "sheathed wire" you are referring to type AC aka "BX"
correct? Just wanted to make sure. If so, everything is fine and
what you've done is perfectly OK. In fact, this is a situation
where buying "spec grade" receptacles with the little self-grounding
clip can save you a lot of work; then you don't have to make up/buy
pigtails or drill/tap your boxes for ground screws.
nate
I'm taking bets it's not BX, AC. Sounds like non-metallic to me.
Correct. Definitely not BX. It is NM (non-metallic) wire that looks like
Romex, but the sheathing appears to be a gray cloth-like material. Maybe
that was the original version of Romex brand wire, but I am not sure. It
looks like the middle gray wire in this photo:
http://www.nachi.org/forum/attachmen...g-img_5281.jpg