I am installing a GFI for my sons washer and drier. The current plug has no ground it is just a dummy. I have a copper water pipe that shows good ground right next to the outlet. Can I simply ground the receptacle box to the water pipe? Also the frame on the GFI tests grounded, could I simply install the receptacle and allow the ground to go through the frame instead of installing a ground wire at the green ground pole?
If you install a GFCI, you don’t need to use a ground.
Don’t use the water pipe.
GFCIs can be safely installed without a grounding connection. But if you do this, you must apply a sticker that says NO EQUIPMENT GROUND on the faceplate. (There will be one in the box that the receptacle came in.)
Most appliances can be safely plugged into a GFCI without an equipment ground. The sticker is for the rare cases (mostly medical equipment and specialty laboratory stuff) where a ground connection is still needed.
That makes it easy. I was reading the directions and thinking I was not understanding properly.
I assumed it had to have a ground to work.
One more question. He bought two GFCI receptacles. If I am understanding it properly the one receptacle will protect anything down line on the load side. I have about 3 receptacles feeding off of this one.
That’s correct - but the LOAD side should only have regular receptacles wired to it, not other GFCIs. If you want to use multiple GFCIs, wire them in parallel so they don’t interfere with each other.
Connecting regular receptacles to the LOAD side of a GFCI is a safe way to provide three-prong receptacles where no ground is available. But as above they must be labeled with the sticker.
Nope. It has a current transformer on each wire (hot and neutral) and if the currents don’t match, it trips. That’s it. It doesn’t need a ground connection.
Never ground to a water pipe.
It used to be that homes had to use the cold water pipe as their ground connection to earth, which made sense at the time since pretty much every home had a cold water pipe and it made a good electrical ground. When they introduced PVC pipe, the NEC was changed. Now you can’t use the cold water pipe as your home’s ground connection to earth. But you can’t have your water pipes float, or they could become electrically hot if there’s a fault. So you end up connecting the water pipes to your ground. But the reason for it is backwards from what it used to be. It used to be that the water pipe was the ground. Now the water pipe connects to the electrical ground.
I don’t think it was ever to code, but connecting grounds to water pipes in older homes (aside from the main earth connection) isn’t all that uncommon. It’s a really bad idea though these days due to the popularity of PVC pipe. If someone cuts out an old corroded section of metal pipe and replaces it with PVC, you’ve lost your ground connection.
Everyone else answered your questions pretty well so I have nothing more to add there.
Same thing here in the UK - all copper pipe has to be bonded to an earth circuit. Unlike the American practice, it is totally wrong to have a three prong socket that is not grounded. In fact every circuit installed this century would have a ground wire, even the five amp lighting circuit.
Grounds are required on any new homes built. It’s only in older homes that were built before the rules changed that you find ungrounded circuits. There’s no requirement in the U.S. to bring older homes up to current wiring standards.
Heck, there are some homes over here that still have knob and tube wiring (which just gives me the willies…).
To be clear, it’s not bad to connect a ground wire to the plumbing. It’s bad to connect it only to the plumbing. Any two grounded conductors can be connected to each other. Just make sure that they’re actually connected to a proper ground, too.
As of ten years ago … a proper electrical ground was two 8 foot brass rods driven all the way into the earth … 6 feet apart … then connected with 8 gauge wire between the rods and up to the main ground bus in your service entrance. Then from the service entrance bus, I used the same 8 gauge wire to connect my metal piping.
Thank you for all the great advice!
Yep, for every load, receptacle, etc. there must be a very low impedance path between the ground connection and the circuit breaker box. To accomplish this, there must be a wire (usually copper) between the ground connection and the circuit breaker box. (The exception, of course, is the topic of this post.)
A long time ago I knew someone who had some old “two prong” 120 VAC receptacles in his outdoor garden. There were no ground wires. He replaced them with three-prong receptacles. To “ground” the receptacles, he pounded a 4 foot rod into the earth and ran copper wire between the rod and the receptacles. :smack:
It is NOT SAFE to ground an outlet to anything other than to the neutral/ground connection in the breaker panel.
Do it right or not at all. Run a new ground wire to the breaker panel or hire an electrician to do this for you. You or a child or someone else in your family could one day touch the metal frame of the washing machine and be electrocuted. Worth being cheap?
Could also be someone who buys your house in the future.
FYI - The reason it is safest to use a proper ground is that people replace water pipes or sections of water pipes with new plastic pipes. And there goes your ground! You then have a “floating [to ground]” water pipe - any ground fault will energize the pipe and the appliance!
While this is certainly better, there’s generally no requirement to do so if all you are doing is installing a GFCI. As noted upthread though, you do need to label the outlet to indicate that there is no ground present.