It's an older house, circa 1940. It was built by a professional contractor who built the house for himself. It's quite well built and it has a lot of funky features, like built-in dressers, which you wouldn't find in a house unless it was a "custom job". We plan to fix it up as close to original as we can without spending tons of money. Mostly all it needs is paint, wallpaper and junk like that.

The one thing that troubles me is the wiring. 99% of it is sound so I'm not worried about old wiring. There's a new panel box in the basement with all new breakers, etc. This is good.

My problem is that the place was built before 3-wire, grounded outlets were required. Consequently, there isn't a 3-prong outlet in the place. We will need to plug computers, microwaves and the like in and I don't want to have a house full of 2-prong adaptors. I will have to replace many of the outlets with the proper ones.

Thing is that there are no ground wires run through the walls. I checked to see if the wall boxes were grounded. They are not. (In a lot of houses I have worked in, even if there is no separate ground wire, the boxes are grounded. All you have to do is hook the green wire to the box.)

I went to the basement and took the cover off the panel. I found that the neutral bus is tied to the earth ground. (Bonded Neutral, right?)

So... Unless I'm mistaken, it would be possible to run a short length of wire from the ground lug on the new outlets I install to the neutral lug... Right?
Because there is no separate ground wire(s) this would be the only way to bring this house anywhere's near "up to speed" unless you wanted to pull all new wires and tie off a new ground to the earthing lug... right?

Also, with this arrangement, putting ground-fault receptacles in the bathroom/kitchen would be out of the question unless I pulled a separate ground wire... Correct? Yeah, I know GFCI's are a pain in the ass sometimes but, IF it's possible I would like to have one in the bathroom(s) at least. Would tying off to the nearest cold water pipe suffice in this case?

T.Y.F.Y.S!
(Thank you for your support!)
 

Just ask yourseof the question, "What would happen if you popped a neutral between the house and the power pole?". Your whole house's electrical system will be floating at 120 volts if your earth ground was defective. Very dangerous, indeed.

If it were my house, I would make sure there are plenty of grounding rods spaced (by code, I think) 6 feet apart. I would also bond them together, and run a separate lead to a cold water pipe where it enters the dwelling.

Whatever you do, make sure there is no chance any of your metal appliances would float at line voltage in event you lost the neutral.

I would also advise you contact several electrical contractors to see what is legal to do, and what is not. The reason I said several contractors is because there are some sleazy ones out there that may not tell you the full story. Don't do anything illegal....it is not worth the risk.

....and wait for some more posts to get other opinions, too. This can be a very touchy topic.

Think of it this way: Let's say you have a branch circuit with 10 outlets on it. The load connected to the last outlet will cause a voltage drop along the entire circuit. The amount of voltage difference depends on the circuit length, wire size, and the sum of the load currents. Each outlet will have voltage difference between it's neutral and an earth ground like a faucet in the kitchen. There will also be a voltage difference between this neutral and another circuit's neutral, which could be located adjacent to each other in the same room. Under certain conditions, like a high-current load or fault, this voltage can rise to a dangerous level.

Even if the voltage is small, the fault and/or difference current can be very high. Since there are no over-current protection devices in the neutral or the earth-ground (water pipe, gas pipe, etc) the current is limited by the circuit wiring which can easily be heated and burned by the excess current. Think of a soldering gun...a very low voltage (like a half a volt or so) and a very high current makes that tip glow.

OBTW…. Never, ever, NEVER, interrupt a neutral with an over-current device or a switch.

Neutrals are floated with respect to earth ground everywhere including all sub-panels. The only place a neutral should be connected to ground (“bonded”) is at the main panel where the service feed neutral AND main earth ground are connected.

I agree with Paul... call a couple of local reputable electricians for suggestions. You might luckout, I’ve seen unused bare ground wire snipped off short in the Romex...but it was there.

>>>Phil

Generally, the first panel once the electrical service enters the building (in a house, that is just about the only panel there is), The ground and neutral are one and the same. In fact, you will often just see the Neutral buss and both ground and neutral wires going to it. There is nothing wrong or unsafe about this. The Neutral bus is to be grounded according to code.

All sub panels after the first panel are to keep ground and neutral separate. Neutral is a current carrying conductor and ground is not. Thus after the ground rod of the building any circuit will cause neutral to deviate from ground potential. The neutral wires must follow Ohm's Law. They have a finite resistance and you are running a current through them thus the potential difference on the neutral wires will be current*resistance of the wire. Sure, the resistance of the wire is low so the voltage will be low but there none the less.

Thus the neutral in your outlet boxes is no longer ground and can not provide a safe nor appropriate ground connection.

When people ask me the difference between ground in neutral when both go to the same place I offer a simple test...

I offer that we go to the electrical panel, lift the ground and the neutral for a lighting circuit, they get the neutral, I get the ground and ask a helper to turn on the light....normally the light in their head goes on before the light switch!

So what is the best thing to do? Make sure you have a good ground (I think Paul has covered that). Then break out the 3 conductor romex and start pulling. Short of that (no pun intended) chase a ground wire for each circuit (I hate romex but you know the residential situation).

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

Like Steve said, break out the Romex (if it is legal in your state) and start pulling.

One thing bad about connection the ground pin and the neutral together at the receptacle is that in event you pop the neutral, both the gound pin and the neutral could float at a dangerous level. Don't do that. Phil pointed out the reason very nicely.

If you don't pull romex, I'm afraid the safest way out is to ground the receptacles separately. That can be a pain in the butt.

The panel in the basement is practically brand new. It was updated about 5 years ago. The F.A.A. paid for it.

So, then, would it be safe to say that I should leave well enough alone except for the few outlets that need to have grounds?

Let's say, the fridge and the microwave need to have grounds. The lamps in the living room and bedrooms don't have grounded plugs anyway. The computer in the den should have at least one grounded outlet. The rest of the house can be left as-is unless there is any unsound wiring/connections.

Now, for those ones that need to be grounded, would it be safe to run a ground wire to the nearest cold water pipe? Pulling wires through the walls of an old house can be a bitch!

I bought my 1924-era house in 1986. It was full of the old "knob-and-tube" wiring, and just a few updated ('50's) outlets in the kitchen.

The attic still has the knob and tube wire. It is only used for the overhead lights, and ceiling fans. I ran a single 12 gauge green copper wire to each box in the attic, and snaked the wire down to the panel. This saved me having to knock holes in the wall to pull new wires... The old knob and tube wire is 12 gauge hard copper. 12 gauge is rated for 20 amps, but I'm running mine at 15. No problems in 15 years!

Most of the other wiring comes up from the basement. I replaced most of this wire, and ran the single green ground wire to areas that were going to be trouble to rewire... the 1950 addition with a 9" crawlspace---what were they thinking?

The house had a 40 amp fuse panel in 1986 that was installed in 1950. I replaced it with a 125 amp CB panel with 24 breaker slots. Plenty of room for updating in the future.

The main improvement after the rewire was that I no longer was aware of the 'fridge turning on from any room in the house just by looking at a light...

I forgot to mention, the previous owners had electric space heaters in every room, and pennies behind the plug fuses in the box. The outlets that fed the heaters were discolored, and could not hold the plug snugly. When I went in to replace these outlets first, I discovered the general condition of all of the outlet wiring.

Good luck, Randy. You will LOVE owning your own house!

Bruce
 

After thinking about it, I'm just going to pull new wires with grounds to the kitchen and the most important areas in the living room, den, etc. on the first floor. That way she can plug in the vacuum cleaner, and stuff like that. Besides, it's easier to pull from the first floor to the basement. The panel is right under the kitchen. Should be easy to pull... relatively speaking.
.
About 5 years ago, a lot of the house was updated. Long story:

This house is right next to the airport. Not "near"... Right ON.
It's not under the traffic pattern or anything. Actually it's 90 deg. off the runway. About 20 years ago the Airport Authority extended the runway. When they did that it ended up putting the "runup area" right in the back yard. After several years of court battles, the Airport Authority got grant money from the F.A.A. for soundproofing about a dozen houses in the area. There are double-insulated windows. Insulation in the walls. Air conditioning was installed and the electrical panel was updated to 200 amp service.

This house is about as soundproof as it gets! You can't hear the cars driving down the street, or people walking by. You could probably light-off a bomb in the front yard and not hear it. You can't hear the jets take off at all. Most of the sound comes out the back end and we are 90 deg. off the side. When they turn the corner from the taxiway to the runway you can hear a little bit. With all the windows and doors shut you can hear a little bit of the "whine" that the engines make. That's it. When the wind is out of the south we get the occasional whiff of Jet-A exhaust.

You can't hear planes land at all. Mostly, they are gliding in, power off. Virtually no noise there. The insulation blocks out all of that sound. Heck! Even standing in the front yard you can only hear the biggest planes landing.

The only real problem is when you get a green horn pilot taking off in a twin engine turboprop. If he doesn't tune his engines/props correctly before he leaves the ramp you can hear the "Woom!! Woom!! Woom!!", sound of the two engines beating against each other. That doesn't happen very often because I THINK the airlines can get fined for noise violations if they let it happen too much.

Next year they are planning to extend the runway another 1,000 feet. That'll move the runup area just that much further away. By the time they come by the house 90% of them will already be in the air.

Besides, I like airplanes. We get front row seats for all the Air Shows! Most of the neighbors put up "Parking $10" signs in their yards too!

The house we just bought was built in 1978, and the stove in the Kitchen was not grounded at all. Instead of having a pig-tail on the back of the stove that plugged in to a grounded 220v outlet, there was just a THICK 3 conductor wire that came out of a hole in the drywall and was "hardwired" into the back of the stove. The wire had 3 conductors, the red "hot wire", the black "hot wire" and a white "neutral" which was also strapped to the frame of the stove.

I found out the hard way if you touched the handle on the front of the stove and the handle of the refrigerator at the same time... it will pick you up and throw you in the floor across the kitchen!! The day we moved into the house, we couldn't get the stove to work... only to find the breaker turned off in the power panel. When I flipped the beaker on, there was enough "juice" flowing through the frame of the stove to make the pilot lights on the controls of the stove to burn dimly... with all of the knobs in the "OFF" position!!

We called an electrical contractor and he came out and re-ran all new wiring to the kitchen. Costs us about $900.00, but well worth it.

------------------
Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Lebanon, Tennessee

Stardust Drive-In Theatre
Watertown, Tennessee

"NEC 210-8
(a) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single phase, 15- and 20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified below shall have ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel.
(1) Bathrooms.
(2) Garages and grade-level portions of unfinished accessory buildings used for storage or work areas.
(3) Outdoors
(4) Crawl spaces. Where the crawl space is at or below grade level
(5) Unfinished basements. For purposes of this section, unfinished basements are defined as portions or areas of the basement not intended as habitable rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas, and the like.
(6) Kitchens. Where receptacles are installed to serve countertop surfaces
(7) Wet bar sinks. Where receptacles are installed to serve the countertop surfaces and are located within 6ft. (1.83 m) of the outside edge of the wet bar sink."

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

"Commonly accepted grounds, such as water pipes, should be checked to be sure they do not have PVC connections or feeds. Gas piping should not be used as a ground. Not only is it a violation of the National Electrical Code (NEC), but sparks during maintenance could be a considerable hazard."

However, the gas piping now needs to be bonded to the service:
This link is too long!!!

"250.104 (B) – This section reaffirms that gas piping that is installed in or attached to a building or structure must be bonded to the service at any of the specified locations. The bonding jumper is to be sized per 250.122."

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

There is an old house in my home town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin when I was a punk kid in the early 50's. That particular old house had some "legends."

I heard recently that the old house still stands, and it still has a "reputation." Last year, I heard that the inside floor plan did not match the foot print of the house.

I remember my parents telling me not to go near that house when I was about 10 or 11 years old. It was only a couple of blocks away when I lived on 13th street.

Yet, after 52 years or so since I was aware of it, nobody apparently had the balls to find out what is between the inside floor plan and the house shell.

Spooky, huh? Maybe it was the home of the "Boogie Man."
*******************************************************
The Boogie Man by Barry M. Caceres

Dark... shadows dance around the closet door.
I pull the sheets up hight.
I must find a place to hide.
Dread... a cold draft drifts along the floor.
I know that he's inside.
I can't let out a cry.

Cold... the creature closes in; I can feel his claws.
I feel chills climb up my spine.
I fear that I will die.
Creep... he crawls beneath my bed, through cracks in the walls.
I try to hide my eyes.
I pray the fear subsides.

Sleep... the Sandman silences my inner screams.
I try to clear my sight.
I can't put up a fight.
Sigh... my pounding heart's subdued as I drift into dreams.
I fly inside my mind.
I will survive the night.

Bruce and Randy: Don't let the Boogie Man getcha!

Barry: Unless it's changed in recent years I think the typical large 240V appliance (range, clothes dryer) doesn't have a ground separate from neutral. The hard wired installation you had simply duplicated what a plug-pigtail & receptacle would have. Those were 3 prongs with 2 hots and a neutral.

Lets not get too carried away with grounding. At most outlets around the house it will not be used at all. Nice to have flexibility in where to plug in computers etc. that will make use of a ground but if there is difficulty and expense involved I'd rewire just where it's needed.

Sometimes things border on the ridiculous such as little AC-adaptor power supplies with polarized plugs (what for?) or devices with grounded 3-prong plugs where there is a plastic housing and nothing there to ground.

It's mainly in the kitchen when Melanie starts plugging in the microwave, Kitchen Aid mixer, toaster oven, coffee pot and what have you that things will get hairy.

I already told her to add up all the wattages of every appliance she's plugging in to the same circuit and divide by 100. If the answer is greater than 15 then I told her that she has to unplug something first. Yeah, I know the real divisor is 120 but it's a little white lie I told to provide a safety factor. When I get the chance to put in the correct wiring we'll make sure the circuits are split up enough to spread the current out. That way she can plug in all her gadgets and not have to worry.

She asked me what to do if she does pop a breaker. I told her to unplug everything, go down and flip the breaker back on and start plugging things in one by one... not plugging in that last thing before the breaker popped. Maybe, if she gets tired of having to do that all the time she'll be more likely to let me tear up her kitchen for a couple of days while I make things right.

She already had a hissy fit at me when I rewired the garbage disposal!
 

We are all single phase, 240V. Even in days gone by when we had round pin plugs and sockets, those were three pin and so carried an earth and were polarized. Most domestic appliances are connected on a ring circuit, with each outlet rated at 13A. Bigger stuff, like cookers and showers will have it's own radial circuit, rated according to the needs of the appliance. Nowadays cable used is generally 'T&E' (twin and earth), in the past single cores were run in steel conduit buried in the walls, with the conduit being used as the earth conductor.

The only two pin outlets I've ever seen here are non-polarized, usually in bathrooms or bedrooms, fed via an isolating transformer for electric razors. It's illegal to have any other kind of outlet in a bathroom.

Don, Japan sounds like what was being described to me by a couple of guys who'd done a job in Thailan. Apparently there they have 110v and 220v supplies, using different connectors. Invariably the two voltages are often sourced from different phases, and the outlets are close together. The guys had racks with both 100v and 220v equipment in them, two supplies out of phase with each other so the potential phase to phase voltage worried them somewhat!
 

Cool. What every aspiring DIY guy needs.
 

Paul;
Just found my first creaky, old house ghost.
I was upstairs fixing the bathroom drain when heard a thumping noise coming from downstairs. I swore it was somebody coming in the back door. Went down to see what it was and found nothing. The back door was locked. I double checked.

I've been in plenty of dark theatres late at night but sometimes your imagination has a way of running away with you. After a freaked-out 1/2 hour of wandering around the house I heard it coming from the basement.

So, are you ready to find out what it was?
It was the water heater boiling up. The temperature was turned all the way up.

Kind of a let down, isn't it?
 

Randy, with the water heater cranked, I bet you had some great hot showers!
 

The only two things on the list that need attention are a couple of spots on the bathroom floors where the floor boards got water logged. They will need to be cut out and replaced. Then there are the bushes growing around the outside of the house. They are overgrown and will start to buckle the basement walls if not pulled out. My brother-in-law is a heavy equipment operator. We can call him to bring a tractor over and rip 'em out. He will only charge us for the hours on the meter plus some "beer money", if you knowwhatimean.

When that's done we will also have the yard graded to make sure the land slopes away from the house for better drainage. Mike (the B.I.L.) can do that all at the same time as he pulls the bushes. Shouldn't cost more than $100-$200 unless there's anything unforseen. <cross fingers>

Yeah! The water was hot! If the heater was "blooping" it would be just shy of boiling, wouldn't it? I turned it down to about half way. I think it's still too hot. Water temperature is one of those things that's best done by experimentation in small increments. I'll be watching it for a few days and making adjustments as needed.
 

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

I have been often told that a house with an electric dishwasher should be run at 140-145 degrees F. Seems that this helps the detergent dissolve better.

No kids in this house. We got the dishwasher. 140 it is.

I now return us all to PBS and "This Old House."
 

There's a rule in Pennsylvania: If you call J.U.L.S. -- Joint Underground Location Service -- (Pronnounced like "Jewels".) no less than 5 days in advance of your dig they will come to your property and mark all of the utility lines. If you hit a utility line because they mismarked something you don't pay. If they DID properly mark the lines or if you don't call them before you dig then YOU have to pay for the repairs. If you call them at least 5 days in advance and they don't show or at least notify you when they will be there, you are off the hook.

The service is free to residential customers. If you are a contractor then you pay a fee every year.

All the water inside the insulated tank takes a while to cool down. You either have to use some hot water or wait for it to cool. Every day I go down to the basement I check the temperature and turn it down another 1/2 notch. When it's the right temperature I'll leave well enough alone. I don't want the water to be too hot but I do like it "good and hot". (No kids...yet. ) The way I see it if the water is a bit hotter, you turn on more cold water so you will use less and the hot water lasts longer. 140 deg. sounds good to me!

Some set them for 125 if they have kids around.

quote:

---

Randy, if those bushes you're going to rip out are really large or deep-rooted, you might want to check on underground utility locations first. If the roots are wrapped around a buried pipe or something, you could run into trouble.

---

Don't pull them out, check to see who rents goats locally.

They are very efficient machines......

"Honey! I bought a new lawn mower!"
"But you already have one."
"Not like THIS one!"... B-a-a-a-a-a!!!!
"WHAT the &$%@!!!"

Now HERE's the really funny part!
When I was a kid, my dad did just that! He was driving down the road one day and saw a goat for sale. He turned a "U-ey" in the middle of the road (slamming me and my brother against the side of the bed of the pickup) went back and bought this billy goat. He tied up the goat in the back of the pickup and headed home. I remember the exchange between my mom and dad pretty clearly. It was pretty much like above except us two kids were screaming, "He's COOL! We want to keep him!" I remember my mother just turned away and walked back into the house with her head in her hands.

We kept the goat for a while. It DID make quite a good lawn mower. Dad would just "stake him out" in a different part of the yard every day. No fuss, no muss! Free fertilizer too! When the goat started getting ornery we had to get rid of it.

One day we were having a family picnic. It was a windy day. My grandmother (My dad's mother-in-law) was wearing a head scarf. The wind blew it off so she bent over to pick it up.

I'm SURE you can tell what comes next. Can't you?

Well, what she didn't realize was that she was right inside the goat's "rope circle". When she bent over she presented a target that no self-respecting billy goat could ever resist! BAM!! Grandma went head over heals! You can fill in the rest with your imagination. (You'd probably be right! )

All I can say is that the goat was gone the very next day.

This is a true story. I SWEAR!
 

Randy, my house was built in 1880 and has all kinds of wierd noises going on. There's always thumping from the attic, which is of course just old slates moving in the slightest breeze, but it spooks the hell out of visitors!
 

PS: A bit of irony... The goats name was "Sweets"!
 

Last October I was in Prague for a holiday, now some of the buildings there are OLD!

It's tragic to see it on tv now under 6 feet or more of water.