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Electrical Wiring

2-prong Outlets

16 years ago

When I bought my older home 10 For my own convenience I changed them all to the newer 2-prong with a third ground hole at the bottom. I am in the process of selling the house to my company due to a relocation. Their inspector checked the outlets and noted that they are not grounded. I am being asked to hire an electrician and correct the problem. Do they still sell the older two prong outlets at Home Depot or Lowes type stores? If so, I plan on going in and changing all the outlets back to their original configuration as I do not wish to hire an electrician and rewire the house or pay for grounds to be installed at every outlet. What do you think of my plan? What other suggestions would you make to corect this problem? I am now living approx 700 miles away and am unable to locate anyone locally to help with the problem. The house in question is in New Orleans and there is still a shortage of repair people at reasonable prices.

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Comments (3)

normel
16 years ago
If you don't want to rewire or add a ground. you only have two other choices: you either change back to 2 prong receptacles or you add GFCI protection to each of the circuits. The GFCI may be either a breaker or a receptacle that protects the receptacles wired downstream of it.

The GFCI protected receptacles should be labeled as "GFCI Protected" and "No Equipment Ground".

The 2 prong receptacles should be available at your local home improvement store.
texasredhead
16 years ago
The old style two prong outlets are usually available at the big box stores or electrical supplies. When we are adding or replacing receptacles in ungrounded service we always use the two prong outlets. However, it does require using an adapter for three prong cords. I know normel is knowledable but we do not follow this pratice. We have also added seperate ground lines to all receptacles in a house but it requires taking these ground wires back to the main panel.
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b. is sometimes easier than you might think with a drill and fish tape, but not always practical. d. is permitted by code for retrofit of old work. All receptacles thus wired must have a label saying "No Ground". The GFCI feature does work without a ground wire and this is what makes it a safety improvement. It is not quite the same as having the ground, but is a very worthwhile improvement in safety and convenience. It does not make surge protectors work fully-a ground is required for that. As you may know, if you can identify the first receptacle in a chain and replace it with a GFCI unit, the rest of that string of receptacles are wired to the "Load" terminals on the GFCI and all are protected. That helps with the cost.
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eyendall- Why exactly do you want to do this? Outlets are typically installed to meet minimum code requirements for location. Simply removing them will make those rooms non-code compliant. Maybe that's not a problem now, but could be when you sell. However, if you insist on doing this, first turn off power at the breaker or fuse box, and test that it's really off with a meter or a lamp. I suggest you leave the wires in place in the box and put a wirenut on the end of each wire. In addition, if you find more than two wires in a box, disconnecting them from the receptacle will kill other parts of the circuit that you probably want to be live. Finally, I am concerned about you doing any of this work since your knowledge of electricity seems minimal: if -- as you suggested -- you were to connect the two wires together you would have molten metal sparks flying briefly the moment you turned the breaker back on. It wouldn't be a bad idea for you to get the help of an electrician on this.
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brickeyee
16 years ago
Install some GFCI receptacles and use the stickers in the box.
If you are willing to work tracing circuits you should only need one GFCI device per circuit.

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