My Mom and stepfather were helping a friend with some reno’s in her house. (He doesn’t know much about this work, but really tries). They were replacing the vanity in the bathroom with a one piece stone one, and of course the drain pipe doesn’t line up with the existing trap, etc. He went back and forth to the home depot man times in order to finally connect the new abs trap to the existing copper drain line.But here is where the story gets good. They also replaced the light fixture. The friend’s house is older, and there is no ground in the outlet box. He couldn’t figure out what to do with the ground wire in the new fixture. They called me, but I missed the call, so he called home depot. They told him to connect the black wire in the wall to the black wire in the fixture, and the white wire in the wall to the white and ground wire in the fixture.
I have done domestic wiring since I was 15, from knob and tube to aluminum, to two wire and three wire lines, and have never heard of this before. The only place I am aware of where neutral and ground are connected is in the main panel.
Any body heard of this before?
Steve
Replies
I've heard of it, but it's not legit. Some could argue that it's safer than leaving the ground unconnected, but there are lots of arguments the other way.
Best thing would be to leave the ground unconnected and then put the whole shootin' match on a GFCI.
Does the house have metal boxes?
I'm guessing it does,and I'd just connect the fixture ground to the box.
Does no good if the wiring is the old 2-wire romex, with no ground.
I didn't ask about the metal boxes, but my stepdad has never seen any other kind, and I'm sure he would have asked if they were the old bakelite type.
Steve
Worth asking
For a period of time Romex was manufactured with insulated current carrying conductors plus a down-sized bare ground wire. Today's full sized ground wire came later.
SOP was to wrap the ground wire around the cable clamp screw, or, the device mounting screw and clip it off thus grounding the metal box.
If this is the case, attaching the fixture ground wire to the box with a ground screw or clip does provide a ground.
Jim
For a period of time Romex was manufactured with insulated current carrying conductors plus a down-sized bare ground wire.
It was also made WITHOUT a ground wire of any sort. My 1960 home was wired 90% without ground wire.
True enough
Romex was indeed manufactured for a fairly long period of time without any ground wire at all........but DanH had already covered that possibility. I was covering another.
The downsized ground wires are sometimes easy to miss seeing, especially if attached to the top cable clamp in one of the old- style diagonal corner boxes ........ and if you don't know to even look around for it.
It's nice to live and hope.
Jim
Yep, I was taking the "no
Yep, I was taking the "no ground" statement at face value. There may actually be a ground, and, as stated, it can be easily missed.
Bit of warning, though: You can't, with an ordinary electronic voltmeter or neon tester, accurately tell if something is grounded. It takes a "wiggy" or an incandescent tester to determine this (and even then you don't know how WELL grounded it is).
I wonder if anyone's ever sued HD for giving out stupid advise. I've heard employees tell customers things that should never be done.
"You can do it, We can help"
"You can do it, We can help" might be good marketing, but that's all it is.
I don't look to pop stars for moral guidance, and I don't expect a store clerk to be a tradesman. Maybe we really need to understand just where the guys get their 'expertise.'
For many, it's literally that they watched a videotape, and maybe one of their in-store seminars. While both of the box store chains once had 'hire trade pros' programs, they quietly stopped doing that long ago. Even when it was in effect, I found the credentials were far weaker than the advertising led you to believe.
For example, I had one guy claim to be a journeyman and former electrical contractor in a place that had no licensing, and required no permits.He certainly produced no union or ICC card!
Again, though, we need to ask just what we expect the clerks to know. If I'm buying drywall, I expect him to steer me to the right nails or screws; I don't expect him to provide me with nailing schedules- unless the store has a handout available; then I expect him to know where those are.
For those who are wondering, the 'correct' answer may not be possible - at least, not without doing a lot more work than you planned on doing.
In short, if you can't ground it, put it on a GFCI- and start saving for a service change and a re-wire. Your home has long outgrown the electrical that it needs. Think about it: we've been running ground wires since the mid-60's. If it has knob & tube wiring, it probably remembers the Korean war too.
If it has K&T wiring it
If it has K&T wiring it probably remembers WWI.