Noob electrical question. I just moved into an old house and

take the face plate off and look.

an unshielded wire is what you are looking for

>>1157283
Not an electrician, but GFCI shouldn't interfere with detecting ground. What happens in some old houses with 2-prong outlets is that they're replaced with 3-prong GFCI outlets to give you a margin of safety despite having no ground. What they SHOULD have is a sticker that comes with the outlets that you slap on that says "NO GROUND". I'm guessing they got lazy and left the stickers off.

If it comes down to it, just pull the plate off and look inside at the wiring.

Sticking two butter-knives into the plugs is a good way to test. link them together with a wire of some kind, plug them in, and remove the wire. If there is a small arc of electricity, it's not grounded. If nothing happens, its grounded.

Sounds like they replaced two-prong outlets with three-prong ones just so they could plug in three-prong cords. If you're not getting any ground it's because there isn't any

Does your tester catch the situation where ground is tied to neutral?

>>1157320
This is a common, and approved, method of replacing two prong outlets so you can have three pronged ones. It doesn't sound like anyone is trying to outwit the system here.

>>1157332
and you aren't required to connect anything to ground terminal? sounds stupid

>>1157417

> sounds stupid

It is...it's also illegal...

>>1157425
Sec. 210-7(d)(3) permits any of the following installations when replacing a 2-wire ungrounded receptacle:

(a) Replace it with another 2-wire receptacle;

(b) Replace it with a GFCI-type receptacle and mark the receptacle with the words “No Equipment Ground;” or

(c) Replace it with a grounding-type receptacle protected by a GFCI device (circuit breaker or receptacle). Since the grounding terminals for the receptacles are not grounded, you must mark the receptacles with the words “GFCI Protected” and “No equipment ground"

>>1157428
why can't you into neutral with protective function?

>>1157425
You're wrong, Anon, as has been pointed out. Hope your (You) hunt was all you'd hoped it would be.

>>1157433
>>1157428

Believe it or not...not all the posters here are yanks...

And yank codes and rules are far more liberal than most other countries...

>>1157441
>not all yanks

No shit sherlock. But using the wonders of inference based on OP's image selection of the north american GFCI protected out configuration I hedged my bets he was a fucking american.

>>1157441
Does that outlet look British to you you fucking spotteddickniggerFUCK I'm not even American and I just don't understand what the honeycuntcherrios is going through your PISS STAINED SKULL when you speak. Bong.

>>1157321
not op but seeing as its not fucking magic how would it manage to do that?
good point as to what probably has happened however.
come on guys fuck sake i thought you were supposed to have invented electricity? get with the fucking times.
i would be so embarrassed owning a house like that i would rewire it properly rather than admit having such cunt wiring even on an anonymous imageboard.

>>1157332
>common, and approved, method
wow
what the actual fuck
i though you guys were just victims of old outdated wiring systems and really trying to phase all that shit out
turns out your all just fucking retarded lol.

>>1157283
no, they probably ran grounds there
back in the day just water areas were grounded without gfci, they could have just put in gfci when they put in the 3 prongs to make it "more code worthy"

in your outlets you should attach the ground to the neutral if it's actually not grounded & no bare wire is there

most homes I've been to that are old in Colorado have grounds in the socket that are just not attached and if you have enough wire you can just wire it up and you're done

>>1157569
You should not do this. It's not okay. This can make your chassis live and current will.flow through you anytime you touch it.

>>1157428

Absolutely right, for US houses.

Don't forget that a single GFCI can protect other receptacles downstream (*if* wired correctly).

>>1157572
No it won't. Don't have your fucking load wire touching your ground.

>>1157582
>what is ground wire even for
please kill yourself immediately.
some us plugs aren't even polarised are they?

I'm in the same situation as op only someone did run ground wires independently at some point. They failed when connecting them to anything else, like ground, though.

>>1157582
Anon just told the faggot to tie his ground into his neutral. Meaning if anything is connected to neutral, like a lightbulb, then you could grab onto 60 watts worth of mains anytime you touch your neutral=ground bullshit.

>>1157583
in most appliances they're for the appliance malfunctioning
if your electrical skill is so fucking shit that you have a hot socket then you have other issues to worry about

>>1157596
what

>>1157583
all of mine are

>>1157599
think outside the appliance
consider for an example a neutral fault between socket and panel. mouse chewed it all up or something i don't know, maybe just a high resistance from a loose connection.
you turn on whatever thing you have plugged in. (conventional) current rushes from hot (line) into the appliance, through whatever is in there (consider a resistive load for simplicity) but whoops there is nowhere for it to go, the neutral is fucked remember. oh, so how can it rush then? well very simple it jumps to the ground via the path you provide and then back up to the appliance case and down through you into the ground. and congratulations now you are dead.

if the ground (and case) were left floating then no such problem, but you do open yourself to live case from appliance fault.
so the solution i guess is to install it properly or don't fucking install them at all.

>>1157583
All standard US outlets are polarized. Some plugs aren't. Generally its for stuff that it doesn't matter. For example, something that has a double insulated shell and is simple enough that the device itself doesn't care which way the current is flowing. You wouldn't want an unpolarized plug for something like a lamp, though. The outer ring of an Edison socket would end up being live if you put it in the wrong way.

>>1157607
>ES
get with the times guys never heard of bayonet?
outer ring is grounded/float, both lives are at the bottom!

>>1157310
Underrated

>>1157610
less retarded than tripfagging

>>1157611
Nice meme

>>1157612
memes aside, you are a fucking nonce.

>>1157602
bridge the neutral and earth terminals and install a GFCI outlet with undervoltage detection.
this is the only safe option to use an existing 2-wire installaton.
leaving earth open is ridiculous

>>1157613
I'm sorry I made you upset friend

>>1157614
jesus fuck just install rcbo at the panel and update your wiring
>leaving earth open is ridiculous
good thing i never said to do that

>>1157602
If it was gfci with an open ground, and alive chassis, it would trip the gfci before a dangerous amount of current could flow because it's gfci. There's no need to bridge ground and neutral at the gfci... That almost completely defeats the gfci.

>>1157621
>That almost completely defeats the gfci.
no, it doesn't.

>>1157602
what the fuck are you talking about?
It can't jump to the ground, because the ground is the same wire as the fucking neutral in what I 'provided'
so it would do nothing.
do you not know electricity at all?

>>1157283
Are you sure 4chan is the place to ask this? Or is /b/ the only board that tricks people into breaking their stuff?

>>1157428
>210-7

how old is your code book? 1984?

>>1157632
don't make me draw you a picture. think about it for a few hours then come back if you still don't get it.

>>1157636
1 minute of my thinking is about a days worth of yours

since I've done it many times in the past 20 years and haven't had any issues nothing is going to change.

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>>1157636
>>1157639

>>1157647
not similar to what was suggested

>>1157647
wow thanks blessed anon, you are my hero. i can't draw for shit on fucking trackpad.

>>1157649
this is exactly what was suggested here >>1157602

i know its what was suggested because it was me that fucking suggested it. i'm sorry if it wasn't clear enough for you but i can only assume this guy >>1157647 understood it because he drew a picture of it.

even if as you say it was 'not similar' you accept it shows why connecting ground-neutral inside the socket is a dreadful idea, rcd (gfci) or not

>>1157656
you should never leave a ground unconnected, at the worst it's no different than having only a neutral & load.. and at the best a faulty appliance will ground out to the neutral.

>>1157663
>you should never leave a ground unconnected
who is advocating that? nobody.
but don't connect ground to neutral unless its at the service head where its supposed to be.

if you can't provide a suitable ground don't install ground pin sockets. simple as that.

>>1157670
wew lad

>>1157670
The electrical code advocates leaving it ungrounded vs putting a bootleg ground on it, holy fuck. Nigger rig king electrician over here.

>>1157441
isn't the code mostly universal anyways? I mean shit it may say NEC but i know it's fuckin standards

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>>1157614

>>1157670
heh, if you leave a single ground terminal ungrounded in germany's electrical exams you'll automatically get 70/100 points deducted for grave code violation

>>1157690
Okay, but a bootleg ground should be a 90% deduction for trying to hide a grave code violation.

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>>1157705
using N as PE is a violation, splitting PEN in front of a RCD/GFCI receptable is ok though

>>1157720
is it common though? thats fucked up man. tn-c over here specifically requires an exception from safety regs and additional inspection sign off shit and nobody does it because its a ball ache so its pretty much just not mentioned in most literature at all.

>>1157681
>The electrical code
how do you guys manage to read the US electrical code?
because i'm assuming its made of toilet paper?

>class 1 device must be grounded
>hehehe plug it in here, this socket looks grounded but isn't! shhhhh don't tell anyone.
fuck me are you all retarded?
no ground available? don't install grounded sockets. fucking so simple isn't it? srsly wtf

>>1157750
The code has an exception for using a three pronged rcd. You are supposed to label it no ground.

If you use an rcd it will trip before any ground fault situation could harm you.

This is better than a.plain three prong outlet being used without ground, and much better than using either gfci or a three prong with a bootleg ground.

Bootleg ground is a term for using neutral as a ground

OP here.

>>1157292
Thank you for answering my question. I pulled the cover off and there was no ground cable collected to the outlet. I undid the screws holding the outlet in the box and the ground tester showed no ground on the outlet. So, the box is grounded somehow. There is no third wire in the box, only white and black, just like the rest of the house. No clue how they did it and I'm not about to rip out 60-year-old tile to find out.

I think my local code allows us to connect ground to the metal conduit. During the 60s they ran the cables in metal conduit.

>>1157565

120v is nothing and grounding isn't that big of an issue. Almost anybody can take a 120v shock. Cats and rabbits and shit chew through cables all the time and are usually fine.

You say were outdated when you still use fuses in everything? the 1800's called they want their technology back.

>>1157780
>>1157818
Yeah if there is metal conduit back to the panel then it's probably okay. If they did something like tie the box to a water pipe, then doubleplus ungood.

>>1157746
TN-C was practically banned in 1973, however old installations don't need to be upgraded. TN-C is only allowed with 10 mm^2 Cu or 16 mm^2 Al minimum and is usually what enters your house.
if you build new or expand circuits the new part mustn't be TN-C; redo the distribution box and you're required to redo the entire installation. most new houses are TN-C-S, a few TT

>>1157876
>still use fuses in everything

>cheap
>fail proof
>allows higher distribution current
>more difficult for idiots to replace without investigating fault cause

why do you hate fuses anon? your appliances are full of them!!