Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?

On Sep 13, 10:08 pm, Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote:
Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?

You can add GFCI's without having a ground as long as you mark the
receptacles "No Equipment Ground", they do not require a ground to
function. Running a ground to existing receptacles can be done but it
can be a real pain. Taping a new 12/2 with ground romex to an
existing 12/2 romex and pulling it through usually won't work because
the the existing romex will be stapled to the studs unless it was
fished in after the walls were finished.

Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?

Unlikely to have much luck at your pulling idea; there are certain to be
contraints on the wire.

First you want to make sure you don't have a ground available to the box
that just isn't being used. Have you opened up a box and checked the wire
going to it? 1955 sounds too new to be without a ground.

On Sep 14, 1:31 am, Eric9822 wrote:
On Sep 13, 10:08 pm, Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote:

Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?

You can add GFCI's without having a ground as long as you mark the
receptacles "No Equipment Ground", they do not require a ground to
function.

Or you can replace the circuit breakers with GFCI breakers. That will
take care of the entire house including your 2 pronged outlets.
instead of changing the outlets. That's what I did in my house. The
code in my town allows this to be done.

If the house was wired with steel cable (BX), that would provide the ground
to each outlet, and you can buy short ground wires to connect from the box
to new grounding type outlets or GFCI outlets. If it's wired in cloth two
conductor non metallic cable, see other posts


Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:30:24 GMT, "Toller" wrote:

Unlikely to have much luck at your pulling idea; there are certain to be
contraints on the wire.

First you want to make sure you don't have a ground available to the box
that just isn't being used. Have you opened up a box and checked the wire
going to it? 1955 sounds too new to be without a ground.


No, I have not opened any outlets yet. I just thought that since all
of the plugs are of the two prong type that they would not be
grounded. If I understand what you are saying is that at the breaker
panel there may be ground wires that are already attached and ran to
the outlets, is that correct?

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:32:01 -0700, Mikepier
wrote:



Or you can replace the circuit breakers with GFCI breakers. That will
take care of the entire house including your 2 pronged outlets.
instead of changing the outlets. That's what I did in my house. The
code in my town allows this to be done.


I like that idea, seems simple and straight forward.

In article , Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:30:24 GMT, "Toller" wrote:

Unlikely to have much luck at your pulling idea; there are certain to be
contraints on the wire.

First you want to make sure you don't have a ground available to the box
that just isn't being used. Have you opened up a box and checked the wire
going to it? 1955 sounds too new to be without a ground.


No, I have not opened any outlets yet. I just thought that since all
of the plugs are of the two prong type that they would not be
grounded. If I understand what you are saying is that at the breaker
panel there may be ground wires that are already attached

Yes...

and ran to
the outlets, is that correct?

... well, run to the boxes that the outlets are in, anyway. Obviously they
wouldn't be connected to the outlets themselves, since there's no place to
connect them. But yes, there may be ground wires there. It was common practice
in that era to strip the ground wire back from the cable sheath, and tie it
off to one of the screws on the cable clamp, without ever bringing it inside
the box. Of course, you won't be able to see that without removing the box
from the wall, but if you have any junction boxes in places where you can get
to them easily (exposed wiring in a basement, crawl space, or attic, for
example), you can see if the cables to those boxes have grounding conductors.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

On Sep 14, 10:04 am, (Doug Miller) wrote:
In article , Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote:

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:30:24 GMT, "Toller" wrote:

Unlikely to have much luck at your pulling idea; there are certain to be
contraints on the wire.

First you want to make sure you don't have a ground available to the box
that just isn't being used. Have you opened up a box and checked the wire
going to it? 1955 sounds too new to be without a ground.

No, I have not opened any outlets yet. I just thought that since all
of the plugs are of the two prong type that they would not be
grounded. If I understand what you are saying is that at the breaker
panel there may be ground wires that are already attached

Yes...

and ran to
the outlets, is that correct?

.. well, run to the boxes that the outlets are in, anyway. Obviously they
wouldn't be connected to the outlets themselves, since there's no place to
connect them. But yes, there may be ground wires there. It was common practice
in that era to strip the ground wire back from the cable sheath, and tie it
off to one of the screws on the cable clamp, without ever bringing it inside
the box. Of course, you won't be able to see that without removing the box
from the wall, but if you have any junction boxes in places where you can get
to them easily (exposed wiring in a basement, crawl space, or attic, for
example), you can see if the cables to those boxes have grounding conductors.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.


If you do that you might as well replace the receps with grounded
ones. Also instead of using the clamp screw just drill and tap the
back of the box for a standard ground screw, then you don't have to
bust up the plaster to get at the clamp screw (or if you have boxes
with built in clamps, I would be skeptical that that would provide a
proper connection for the ground wire.) you can get a tap with a
screwdriver handle for just this purpose.

nate

Jim, Ellis, at, aol, dot, com wrote:

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:32:01 -0700, Mikepier
wrote:


Or you can replace the circuit breakers with GFCI breakers. That will
take care of the entire house including your 2 pronged outlets.
instead of changing the outlets. That's what I did in my house. The
code in my town allows this to be done.

I like that idea, seems simple and straight forward.

Just be aware that GFCI circuit breakers cost about 5x what GFCI
receptacles do, while providing the same level of protection.

Jim Ellis at aol dot com wrote:
Hi all,

I have a house that was built in 1955. The elctrical outlets are of
the two prong variety. I want to run a ground wire from the 100 amp
service to all the outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms and then add
GFCI outlets in these locations. I also want to run a ground wire to
the outlets in one bedroom that I will be using as an office and as
such it will have a fax, printer, and computer that all require
grounded outlets. My question is, how difficult is it to snake the
wires to the outlets? What if I just tape some three wire romex to the
old wire at the outlet and pull it through the existing hole?
Thoughts, opinions?



It's often not that bad to snake a single green #12 or #14 wire thru the
walls to ground the outlets. The ground wire does not have to run with
the current-carrying wires when retrofitting old work. Connect the
green wires to the big bare copper Grounding Electrode Conductor that
comes out of your panel; using a big split bolt connector makes it easy.
I think you can daisy-chain these supplemental Equipment Grounding
Conductors, but I've been using a home-run for each one that I add to my
house.

It *was* too difficult to run a proper ground wire to the outlet by my
kitchen sink, so I just put in a GFCI outlet and a "No Equipment Ground"
sticker on the cover.

Bob

On Sep 14, 9:20 am, N8N wrote:

snip

instead of using the clamp screw just drill and tap the
back of the box for a standard ground screw, then you don't have to
bust up the plaster to get at the clamp screw

Better and quicker, use a grounding clip on the side of the metal box.

Joe

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:15:46 -0700, Joe wrote:

On Sep 14, 9:20 am, N8N wrote:

snip

instead of using the clamp screw just drill and tap the
back of the box for a standard ground screw, then you don't have to
bust up the plaster to get at the clamp screw

Better and quicker, use a grounding clip on the side of the metal box.

Quicker yes, but why would a clip be better than a screw, that can be
tightened?

Joe

On Sep 15, 10:34 pm, mm wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:15:46 -0700, Joe wrote:
On Sep 14, 9:20 am, N8N wrote:

snip

instead of using the clamp screw just drill and tap the
back of the box for a standard ground screw, then you don't have to
bust up the plaster to get at the clamp screw

Better and quicker, use a grounding clip on the side of the metal box.

Quicker yes, but why would a clip be better than a screw, that can be
tightened?

The clip actually puts as much (and maybe a bit more) bare wire in
contact with a metal box as a screw does. Since grounds don't (or
shouldn't) carry current either a screw or clip will be just fine.
Cranking down on a screw only deforms the copper and adds precious
little to the conductivity of the junction. Makes sense, then, to save
some time on the project by using clips. HTH

Joe