Runing a ground wire to ungrounded circuit

17 years ago

Most of the 120v circuits in my ancient house ("wired" in the 1940s I'd guess--or at least after REA came to the county) are not grounded.

I want to wire a receptacle to provide 120v to a new gas stove. Unfortunately, the most convenient circuit is one of the ungrounded ones. Next to the new outlet, however, is the old, to be abandoned, 240v one for the condemned electric range.

Question: could one run a ground wire from 240v circuit's ground wire either into the new outlet or to the frame of the range?

I somehow suspect that this will not be code-compliant.....

Thanks,

Richard, in Southern Boone County, MO

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Comments (4)

jscozz
17 years ago
First you will need to determine if what you see as a ground wire is really grounded! Unless you have a real ground at your main panel there is not much you can do. If you do have a newer panel with a true ground, then you could use conductors from the old range outlet and pull it over to the new location, but I would not recommend this... first, the stove outlet is probably #6 wire... much bigger and harder to work with than the #12 you need. If it were me, and to be fully code compliant and safe, I would just pull a new #12 romex from the main panel to the new outlet location. And I would spend some money to have the service entrance and panel replaced if it not a newer, properly grounded breaker panel. The older stuff may keep on working, but ity is just asking for trouble.

Jeff
laexile
Original Author
17 years ago
Jeff, thanks for your reply.

I wasn't very clear about my set-up. The service panel (from which the #6 wire comes) is fully grounded and up to date (as of 1969, at least). I guess my question is this: could I simply run a bare ground wire (a jumper, as it were) from the soon to be decomissioned 240 outlet to the 120 outlet?

The service entrance panels, to repeat, are properly grounded. When I added two new panels (for the elec. range, water heater, baseboard heaters), these were all up to date, so to speak. However, the old, original breaker boxes the electrician fed as sub panels from the new work were all ungrounded. So, I have a bunch of really old un-grounded, 120 v. two-wire circuits and the new (35 year old), mostly 240 v. circuits.

I could try to crawl into the tiny lean-to attic and drag a new cable to the kitchen, but that is an unappealing prospect, to say the least.
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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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joefixit2
17 years ago
Jeff, Of course there is a real ground at the main panel, otherwise none of the 120 volt loads would work. I suspect you mean ground rods or water pipe bonds, which don't really have anything to do with grounding receptacles. The service neutral is what accomplishes that.

Anyway like Jeff says the best solution is a new run for the stove. If it is not too easy access, you could use the old 220 circuit and change it to a 3 wire 120 volt circuit by taping one wire white at both ends for the neutral and using the bare wire (assuming this is a run of SE) for the grounding conductor. You can splice #12 or #14 pigtails onto the old range wire at both ends, just be sure to use the appropriate breaker for the size pigtails you choose. Set screw butt connectors work well for splicing to the smaller wires.
brickeyee
17 years ago
Grounds need to be run with the other circuit conductors.
If they take another path the niducatnce in the circuit can result in a high circuit impedance and slow (or even rarely prevent) enough fault current to trip the breaker.
If you have access to the basement (or attic in a 1 story house) running new circuits is not difficult.

Runing a ground wire to ungrounded circuit

Comments (4)

jscozz

laexile
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Runing a ground wire to ungrounded circuit

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jscozz

laexileOriginal Author

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laexile
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