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Electrical Question
While replacing an old outdoor single outlet receptacle ( with a GFI
protected), this is what I found. There are two cables, power coming in and the other going out to a switch to power an outdoor light. These are the two wire type with no ground wire. The two black wires were spliced together with a copper crimp with a pigtail going to the one outlet terminal. The white wires were crimped together and a pigtail was attached to the other outlet terminal. There is also another pigtail from the white wire crimp that goes to a ground screw in the metal box. That is my question. Is this the old way to ground an outlet box or am I about to be fried? I have since replaced it with a GFI outlet without the ground wire in place. |
#2
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The two white wires are neutrals and the pigtail to the outlet is fine, but
remove the pigtail to the box, which is wrong. If the cable is metal, the sheath serves as the ground. If the cable is nonmetallic and has no ground, the GFCI should be marked as ungrounded, or better yet, replace the cable with a grounded type. hth "jadern" wrote in message ups.com... While replacing an old outdoor single outlet receptacle ( with a GFI protected), this is what I found. There are two cables, power coming in and the other going out to a switch to power an outdoor light. These are the two wire type with no ground wire. The two black wires were spliced together with a copper crimp with a pigtail going to the one outlet terminal. The white wires were crimped together and a pigtail was attached to the other outlet terminal. There is also another pigtail from the white wire crimp that goes to a ground screw in the metal box. That is my question. Is this the old way to ground an outlet box or am I about to be fried? I have since replaced it with a GFI outlet without the ground wire in place. |
#3
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jadern wrote:
While replacing an old outdoor single outlet receptacle ( with a GFI protected), this is what I found. There are two cables, power coming in and the other going out to a switch to power an outdoor light. These are the two wire type with no ground wire. The two black wires were spliced together with a copper crimp with a pigtail going to the one outlet terminal. The white wires were crimped together and a pigtail was attached to the other outlet terminal. There is also another pigtail from the white wire crimp that goes to a ground screw in the metal box. That is my question. Is this the old way to ground an outlet box or am I about to be fried? I have since replaced it with a GFI outlet without the ground wire in place. Unless the use of crimp splices in electrical work is required or customary in your area for copper wire the presence of crimp connections in the wiring would suggest the presence of Aluminum wiring. Crimp splices are the most reliable remedial measure for aluminum wirings early problems. That does not effect the work you have described so far but be aware of the possibility that your wiring is the old alloy aluminum type. If it is then be very sure that you use only devices listed for aluminum wiring where ever aluminum wiring terminates directly on the device. If the pigtails from the crimp splices are copper than terminating the copper pig tails on CU only devices is just fine. When working on your wiring you must only use listed CO/ALR devices to terminate the aluminum wiring. Do not try to apply ordinary crimp connectors to aluminum wire! They are not suitable for the application and will develop arcing faults and high resistance glowing connections that can lead to a fire of electrical origin. The only crimp connector that is listed for use in joining aluminum wiring to copper wiring is a high pressure crimp that must be applied be specifically certified electricians using only a particular crimping tool. -- Tom H |
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