# Electricians: how to ground an outlet in an old house **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756 "2020-06-24T15:37:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756/21 "2020-06-30T17:19:16Z")
It’s a GFCI. Although I can check and make sure that the wire connections are tight, beyond that, I don’t know if there’s anything else to be fixed, short of replacing the dishwasher, which isn’t going to happen now. Unlike the disposal I replaced, which hadn’t been used in years, perhaps decades, the dishwasher has been used regularly without any issues. It seems to me that restoring it to the functional equivalent of its previous state, while adding GFCI protection to the disposal, should be okay. Do you have any suggestions for possible faults I could investigate? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2020, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756/22 "2020-07-01T03:32:38Z")
So I took the outlet out of the original one-gang metal box that had held the original switch, which was a little cramped when I had to stuff it in with the wires behind it. I put it into a deeper two-gang metal box where it would fit a little more comfortably, carefully redoing all of the connections the same as before, with the dishwasher on the load terminals. I ran the dishwasher through a regular cycle and it finished normally. Yay! Problem fixed? No. When I ran it again after dinner, it tripped again, at the same point in the final drying cycle as the night before. And like the night before, I reset it a couple of times and it continued and finished the cycle. My next step is to buy another GFCI outlet (of a different brand, if I can) and see if it does the same thing. With luck, maybe this is just a problem with this particular unit. Does anyone have any ideas about what could be happening here? ETA: the outlet is rated 20A, although the breaker feeding it is 15A. Is that relevant in any way? If I get a new one, should it be 15A? ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756/23 "2020-07-01T04:07:59Z")
I started a thread on GFCIs and treadmills and the consensus was GFCIs don’t work well with motors. > [@GFCI and treadmills](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gfci-and-treadmills/913402): > > About a year back, we bought a treadmill from Costco and it would run for a while and then trip the GFCI breaker. I thought it was the incline motor and replaced it. Didn’t fix the problem. So we returned the treadmill and bought a new different model. The problem returned after a while. After searching the internet, I found that this is a common problem since the treadmills discharge the static through the ground wire. I was surprised that a consumer device escaped codes/regulations somehow. T… ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756/24 "2020-07-01T04:40:14Z")
Thanks. So first I’ll follow e\_c\_g’s advice in that thread to try a different brand of outlet. If that doesn’t work I’ll try connecting the dishwasher directly to the house breaker instead of through the GFCI outlet. e\_c\_g, do you agree with yourself in that other thread that the dishwasher motor could be causing the GFCI to trip? If so, is there any other solution? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756/25 "2020-07-02T02:30:10Z")
A new Leviton GFCI outlet seems to have solved the problem. Either the particular LeGrand Reliance outlet I got was faulty, or their circuitry is too finicky for my situation for some reason. I installed the Leviton and have run the dishwasher through four or five cycles with no problem. Thanks again to everyone who offered advice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electricians-how-to-ground-an-outlet-in-an-old-house/912756.md?page=1)