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Electrical Wiring

Adding ground wires to old house wiring.

16 years ago

My old house has two prong outlets that I want to replace with three prong outlets and add a gound wire. Do all the new grounds have to go all the way to the panel ground connector? Can I clamp some of the new ground wires to a #6 or #8 wire in a basement junction box and run the heavier ground wire from there to the panel. Thanks ya'll

Comments (5)

billhart
16 years ago
They need to have a path back to the panel (don't pretend you found "ground" on a pipe somewhere), but they don't need to be individual wires all the way back. You can join up grounds, and a #12 or #14 is ok.

These are to carry the current from one fault somewhere for the time that it takes to trip the breaker, so they don't need to be bigger than the branch circuit wires and how many you join up doesn't affect wire size needed since we assume only one will be conducting fault current at a time. Connect the ground wires to any junction boxes along the route. You don't need to add additional junction boxes just for the grounds.

The ground should follow as closely as practical the route of the hot and neutral on each circuit. If a fault current has to make a big loop (hot from the panel, fault somewhere to ground, and a different path on the other side of the house back to the panel) the breaker trip time can be extended because magnetic field effects limit the current. You want a very large fault current for a very short time to trip the breaker fast, not 40 amps for a long time heating things up before the breaker trips.
cobraguy
16 years ago
If you currently have individual wires in conduit, you can add an individual ground by pulling it through the conduit. But I don't believe you can just add an individual ground wire without it being in conduit or romex. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.

You can also protect a circuit with a GFCI and add 3 prong plugs. There will be no equipment ground and you must label the outlets accordingly.
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rileyann, I don't think Joefixit had read the original posts about the ground wire. The truth is that I don't fully trust that ground wire - that's part of the reason for making a home run to the breaker box. If you don't feel comfortable making the connection in the breaker box, hire the whole job done. A professional will do a good job of getting it to the box, and getting it grounded properly. I think that running a new conduit (which is what would need to happen) may put the the job outside your current abilities. Just so you know, current code requires at least two 20 amp small appliance circuits in the kitchen that feed almost nothing else (the fridge can be on one of those, a kitchen clock outlet and an outlet for a gas stove are all that's permitted to be included with counter-top outlets - no lights and certainly not GD and/or DW). There's a little more to the code than that... but you can google it. I don't know if your remodel would obligate you to meet current code, but it's good to know what that code is. For sure if your counter-top outlets, GD, DW, and Fridge are all on the same circuit it needs the GD and DW split off. The circuit is over utilized even if there wasn't a rule about counter-top outlet circuits in the kitchen being kept separate. The point is you need to make a home run back to the panel and you probably need to hire it done.
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Thanks for the fast responses! Unfortunately, the cable feeding the switch is old as well. I considered adding an entirely new circuit to supply my new lights but my main problem is i cannot access the old cables that i would be abondoning. If I abandon the current setup...im assuming i would just have to terminate the cable in the attic in a junction box...not a big deal. But i would also have to put a cover plate over the existing wall switch? Im not thrilled about that idea. And if i ran new romex i could not feed the new cable to a place that is relatively close to the old switch which is important to my wife. Guess, that is why i was hoping to somehow just ground the existing set up.
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Put the 4 wire receptacle back in just like it was and take the 3 wire receptacle back. Purchase a 4 wire cord for the dryer. The middle terminal on the dryer should have some kind of jumper, either a bare metal strip or a green wire, that gets removed. There should be a place marked where the green wire in the cable goes on the dryer. The black, white and red wires in the cable go to the terminal block. There should be a diagram for all this on the dryer. The standard for dryer wiring is to use 4 wires instead of 3 and it is not code compliant to change back to 3 wire.
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It's a hazard and so blatantly wrong, that if you're even considering it you have no business even taking coverplates off. 250.130 would be a good place to start but it's probably in violation of a ton of other articles as well. About the only time you can use the grounded conductor to carry the equipment ground is a few grandfathered cases for stoves and electric clothes dryers.
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arichard21
16 years ago
I am going to agree with cobra guy on this... ALL of your conductors need to be in the same casing, weather it be conduit or sheathing (romex). The best course of action like corbaguy suggested is to gfi protect.
normel
16 years ago
OK Cobra, I will correct you. You are allowed to run a ground wire separate from the other conductors when grounding an otherwise ungrounded circuit [250.134(B)Exception 1]. However, it is usually just as easy (or difficult) to replace the entire cable with grounded cable.
cobraguy
16 years ago
Thanks Normel. I actually came across one of Brickeyees posts on another thread that said the same thing. My thought process was running THHN through the house and not being in conduit.

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