A properly installed metal conduit can be the ground. If you install it right, you can install a grounded receptacle using the ground from the conduit. The armor of old BX is not a sufficient ground. Neither is current type MC (though it will typically have a grounding conductor other than the armor). Type AC's armor (and it's integral bonding strip) can be used as a ground. Type NM (ROMEX) with a ground wire is OK. Most of the smaller stuff (12, 14) has a full size ground (it's just bare). Larger stuff has a smaller grounding conductor because such is an acceptable size. Art. 250.130(C) allows the extension of a ungrounded branch circuit to be connected to certain grounds to pick up the equipment ground.

"Your plug is a standard 110/120 volt plug at 20 amps. At the big orange look at their standard receptacles and you will find one rated for 20 amps that has one of the slots in a T shape." and "Your plug is a standard 110/120 volt plug at 20 amps" The outlet I bought at Big Orange that will fit it is a 2-pole, 3-wire, 20amp-250V grounding outlet. One slot is horizontal, and the other looks like a "T" on its side, which fits the vertical flat blade. Normel is right... this is a Swedish high-efficiency washer with an internal on-demand style water heater. It is 240V (as is it's replacement set from Bosch). I will be pulling the big 4-slot dryer plug and wiring this in temporarily without the neutral (as normel confirmed for me--thanks). I will plug this puppy in, turn on the power and pop the washer open. At which point I will immediately turn the breaker back off and undo all of this have the 240 dryer plug ready for the delivery guys when they arrive next week. I'll post my results back here. Thanks to all. sj

Only if you attach a ground wire and run it back to the panel or protect those outlets with a GFCI and label them as "no equipment ground".

The reason an outlet has three prongs is that the 3rd prong accommodates a ground wire. If you don't have a ground wire running to each receptacle box, your new 3-prong outlets are really just 2-prong outlets because the grounding prong is not connected to anything. Further, ungrounded 3-prong outlets give the false impression to people that the circuit is ground-protected, when it's not, and that is not safe thing to do. The difficulty of getting ground wires from the main panel to each receptacle will depend entirely on the construction of the house and how easy it is to snake wires to each box. Given your limited knowledge of wiring, this is a job to be tackled by an electrician, or with the help of a knowledgeable friend.