I am not so much interested in grounding the outlet, just getting the house to pass inspection for sale, part of which is installing a GFCI.
In other news, my multimeter arrived yesterday.
mmm
In the old days, you were actually required to ground your house through the cold water pipe, since it was a convenient hunk of metal driven in the ground in pretty much every home. That changed when folks started using plastic pipe and you could no longer rely on the cold water pipe for your earth ground.
These days, you NEVER want to ground to the nearest pipe.
This gets confusing, because modern codes require your plumbing to be grounded. While you are often making the same connections electrically, the reasoning is completely backwards from what it was originally. In the old days, you grounded to the pipe and relied on that for your earth ground. These days, you CANNOT rely on the pipes for the earth ground, but you also don’t want any possibility of your plumbing shorting to a hot wire somewhere and your pipes all becoming electrical hazards. So what you still end up doing is connecting a ground wire to your plumbing. But like I said, it’s backwards from what it was. Instead of grounding to your pipes, you are now grounding your pipes to your separate ground rod(s). The pipes are no longer doing the grounding, but the pipes instead are being grounded.
So you definitely want to ground your plumbing, but you never want to ground TO your plumbing, which is confusing because in the old days you grounded to your plumbing, and with both the old and new systems, either way you end up running a ground wire to your plumbing.
All good points. I remember my electrician explaining the issue about modern piping or possibly modified old piping being an unreliable ground.
New construction I know its a plate buried a couple feet down under the meter, at least around here. In older houses with copper water service, ground wire is simply clamped to the water service pipe between the slab and the water meter. Even if local water mains are non conductive, that water service pipe is plenty deep enough to be as grounded as is possible. I suppose in a really dry climate it may not be sufficient.
Still pretty easy to run a cable to a suitable ground.
Now that you have the meter, hit me up with any questions.
I went back there the other day, meter in hand. It is fixed.
I think, as you have suggested, I had it wired correctly early on. I believe I either:
- Did not, at first, realize that the switch controlled the outlet, or
- Did not sufficiently click the test/reset button on the GFCI
It still needs to pass inspection for sale of the house. My two remaining concerns:
- I did not test the metal box to determine if it is grounded. I hope that will not be an issue if it is not.
- It is an old, small box, not designed to contain a GFCI. I got everything to fit, but it was tight. I am hoping they will not require a larger box to pass.
mmm
Congrats! It’s always a triumph to finish up jobs like this.
This item installs over the smaller box and gives you a crap ton of room to do whatever you want. You might have to pigtail the shorter wires in the old box to extend them to a usable length.
Nice job! The inspector won’t be checking if the box is grounded - now that the GFCI is installed and working. It’s likely that it IS grounded. Now that you have the meter, just take an OHM reading from the neutral of the GFCI to the metal box. With power off!! This will tell you if it’s grounded. You will get 0-Ohms. (the only time this trick doesn’t work - if the main electrical panel is not bonded properly)
In the above diagram, the right side of the panel contains the neutral bar and the left is the grounding bar (they can both be used interchangeably in the main panel where the service disconnect is located due to the “bonding”). The bonding jumper connects the neutral bar to the panel enclosure and also to the ground bar via the flat metal bar that runs behind the breakers from left to right. As long as that bond is in place anything mechnically secured “bonded” to the panel will be “connected” to the neutral - including ground wires, conduits, ground rods, water pipes, gas lines, etc. This is why bonding is so important and why only electricians should install this stuff. It looks easy, but there is much more to it.
I love that I’m getting input from both @commasense AND @Uncommon_Sense.
Thank you! I hope I never have to dig into that box again.
That is good to know, I was not aware those existed. I was worried about having to disassemble that tubing that looks like it’s been there since the Civil War. Pigtailing is not a problem, actually had to place one for the GCFI install.
mmm
He’s the black sheep of the _sense family. (Inexplicably, he says the same thing about me!)
I’m good with this…Lol!
Yeah, but you’re the one with the dark-colored avatar. I smell a brotherly double-cross in the making.
Curses, he’s on to me!
Can I jump on this discussion with a question?
I have an old house, and pretty much all the wiring needs updating. Very little is grounded. Only some newer work is, including the work I’ve done.
I do have 200A service with a lot of space on the panel. I’m embarking on a number of remodels and will be doing the electrical right for those. For instance, I’ll be redoing a second floor bathroom in the next couple of weeks. Eventually, I also want to get the bedrooms sorted (in addition to not being grounded, each wall has exactly one outlet on it, exactly in the center of the wall).
This means running a lot of wires from the fully finished basement (you should see the 50s full wet bar with fireplace down there!) up to the second floor. Lots of holes in lots of walls.
Could I “leagally” run a single line to a sub panel in the unfinished part of the attic (no problem with access) and then “drop down” into the various second floor rooms from that sub? It would dramatically reduce the total wiring and the amount of smashie-smashie in the walls and ceilings.
Interesting question.
I’m sure one of the Senses can help you.
mmm
Not me, but my evil twin almost certainly can. (Unless he’s been lying about his credentials. Again.)
j/k
This would be ideal and a dream for any future electician to deal with.
And, you will NOT bond the neutral to the panel in the sub-panel. This only occurs where the main disconnect is located. You will have to run a 4 wire cable to the subpanel. (2) hots, (1) ground and (1) neutral. I would recommend a 50-amp rated cable (3-wire with ground) and a minimum 12 circuit sub-panel with a main breaker installed in the subpanel so you can cut power to the panel for upgrades without running to the basement to kill the breaker down there.
It’s generally not a good idea. The area around the sub-panel can’t be used for storage, and an attics are generally used for storage. Also, if there is a fire in the panel you won’t smell the smoke since it will rise. A fire in a basement or ground floor panel will be much easier to detect since anyone home at the time will much more quickly smell the smoke.
That said, whether it’s legal or not depends on a bunch of things.
The attic needs to be easily accessible. You say there’s no problem with access, but does it actually meet the NEC guidelines for it being an accessible space? If you need to pull down a ladder or otherwise climb into the attic then it’s probably not. If you have fixed stairs going into the attic then you are probably ok.
Is there an adequate working space around where the sub-panel will be located? That space needs to be 6 1/2 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. A lot of attics don’t have that much unobstructed space where a panel can be located. You also need to have enough space so that the panel door can open fully.
The area has to be well-lit, so you might have to install a light bulb near the panel.
There is a limit to the size of the sub-panel (amp capacity). I don’t recall what the limit is off the top of my head but you’ll need to check that.
There may be some other requirements but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Basically, if you can easily get into the attic and have the working space around where you want to put the panel, you’re probably fine.
Since you are redoing everything, you’ll want arc fault interrupters (AFCI) in your bedrooms and ground fault interrupters (GFCI) in any “wet” locations (kitchen, bathroom, garage, etc). Basically, you can replace like with like (so if your house is old and has 2 pronged outlets and one breaks, you can replace it with a 2 pronged outlet), but anything you change has to meet all modern codes.
Something like this, except you will install a 50 amp (2) pole breaker in this panel and land the incoming (top) wires on that breaker and label it as the MAIN for the panel. You will be back-feeding the panel via that 50 amp breaker. Cheaper option, more flexible.
You could also buy a panel with a 100 amp main breaker (pre-installed) and use it instead.
(Don’t worry about the 100 amp breaker being “too big” since you will be installing a 50 amp breaker in the main panel (protecting the wire), this will still be a legal install.) This set-up is usually more costly and harder to come by.
Thanks. 50A is what I figured. I need to service 4 bedrooms, one office, and two bathrooms (only one of which currently exists). So 50A should be plenty, I’d think.
I’m aware of these, and there’s plenty of room up there. Walk-up attic. I could also put the sub in the finished part of the attic (there’s a 20x20 bedroom up there that is in fact just used for storage right now).