[TowerTalk] outlet ground problems and shack grounds updating info needed please.

[Pete Smith]

My old house turned out to have 2-wire on one circuit.  I was advised by 
my contractor that putting a GFCI outlet at the point in the circuit 
nearest the breaker would adequately protect all the other outlets on 
the circuit (this, however, was before our county had a building code).

73, Pete N4ZR

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On 7/26/2010 10:13 AM, jimlux wrote:
> Mickey Baker wrote:
>    
>> Fred,
>>
>> By the way, those surge suppression strips and GFCI outlets are
>> useless on ungrounded circuits.
>>      
> GFCI doesn't need a ground (otherwise, why would they bother putting
> them on hairdryer cords).. They work by sensing the difference in
> current between the two power wires by running them both through a
> transformer core. If the two currents aren't exactly opposite, the
> breaker trips.
>
>
>    
>> As far as hiring an electrician and pulling a permit, use your own judgement
>> and make your own decision as to whether or not you can do the work safely.
>> A permit doesn't make work safe. Remember that even experienced, licensed,
>> good electricians make mistakes - that's the reason for inspections.
>>      
> In most localities, permit and hiring electrician are separable.  It's
> legal in most places to do electrical work on your own residential
> property.  They'll want to inspect, of course (and charge for the permit
> too.)  If you're planning on selling the house in the future, and the
> work is going to be obvious (e.g. you've only got 3 prong plugs in one
> room of the house), then it's best to bite the bullet and do the permit
> now, rather than when you sell.
>
>
>    
>> #12 isn't big enough to ground your mast or to bond to your house electrical
>> system to expect reasonable lightning protection. Pounding an 8' ground rod
>> into the ground and bonding with #6 or larger is recommended as a minimum.
>>      
> Grounding is a bit more complex than just hammering in a rod. In many
> areas, a single ground rod would not comply with the code, and in any
> case, if you DO have a rod, 8 feet of it have to be "in the soil". More
> important is that all the grounds are bonded together.  #6 is the
> required size for bonding two grounds for most situations, but you need
> to look at the relevant sections of Art 250 of the NEC to get the
> details.  While the latest NEC isn't online, most of the grounding
> provisions are, in one place or another.  Carl Malamud's
> publicresource.org website has the 2007 California code, which contains
> most of the 2005 NEC http://public.resource.org/bsc.ca.gov/index.html
>
>    
>> Good luck. Make safe choices - you might be making decisions for people you
>> don't know who will be living in the house in years to come.
>>      
>
> Very true.. whatever you do, do it in a way that is conventional.
> Documents get misplaced, and you don't want some poor soul sitting there
> 20 years from now going "what in the world did they do here?"
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