Posts: 2,655
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Is the box grounded? If so, ground to the box. Many older houses don't have a ground. Just a neutral and a hot.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Edited by - oink on 12/15/2007 18:23:30
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Posts: 2,655
Threads: 42
Joined: Sep 2006
The wires should come in the back of the box. If the box is metal, the ground, if there, will be the bare copper (you hope) wire and could be screwed down to the box. I do hope the wire is not the old paper insulated stuff.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Oh geez... your making this much more complicated then I was hoping for.
Just so you know... I'm not working on it w/ the power on. I keep turning the master power off in between.
But after reading what you just posted. I'm pau for now.
I was really hoping you would say...."Oh no need to ground da buggah"
Oh well... lesson learned.
Somewhere on this message board there is a link to what we should teach kids.... I guess I never learned the basics.
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Coming home soon!
Posts: 2,655
Threads: 42
Joined: Sep 2006
...."Oh no need to ground da buggah", but mo betta if you do.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Posts: 3
Threads: 1
Joined: Dec 2007
We just rewired an old home, It had at least 4 gernerations of wiring. many of the outlets and switches had metal boxes, but were not grounded. the previous people just cut the wire and added new wire. consequently no continuous ground. follow the wire back and if need be run a new wire from the box its better to be safer and sleep peacefully. al
al
al
Posts: 325
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Joined: Oct 2007
I'll have 30 years in the fire service next April. I've been to hundreds, if not thousands, of house fires directly related to bad wiring/overloaded circuit/ungrounded outlet. Some were as simple as a smoked outlet with a tripped breaker, but many have been real fires with all that entails.
Electricity is FM (f***ing magic) to me, I always get an electrician if it's anything I don't understand. To me, it's worth the peace of mind.
How do I know?
Aloha! ;-)
Pau...
And the buggah is grounded. (I hope)
Thanks for the assistance.
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Coming home soon!
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You can also buy this small " circuit tester" from home depot for like $10. You plug the tester into the outlet and it lights up to tell you if the box is wired correctly or another light comes on telling you the problem.
Nate
There was just last week a fire in Long Beach CA where three young girls were killed because of faulty wiring and possible over loaded circuit.
