Does a GFCI Outlet Still Provide Protection Without A Ground Wire?

so i put a pull out to my community asking if you have a gfci outlet do you need a ground wire for this outlet to give you ground fault protection pretty simple question but two out of three people got it wrong and they said yes you need a ground wire for a gfci outlet to provide that ground fault protection and that actually is not the case before diving a bit deeper into the why so why does this actually work i just want to be clear that you should be using a ground wire and this is only a very specific scenario that provides for a safer install and is actually approved by nec now if you have a ground wire or can place a ground wire throughout your electrical system tying back to your panel that is by far the better way to go this is only for instances in older homes where you might not have a ground at all and specifically are dealing with two prong outlets now i have the scenario in a few of my rental units and it's not actually that uncommon in my area in the older parts of town we have many homes built in the early 1900s 1910s 20s 30s where you'll see these two-pronged outlets what i'm trying to avoid and what you should be trying to avoid too is where a three-prong plug where the device or equipment is expecting an equipment ground for safe operation remember this equipment ground is making it so if there is any type of short where the hot wire is exposed to a piece of metal that it's protecting the person touching that piece of equipment or appliance what is happening is a lot of people are getting these small adapters they're plugging in three prong slide and then connecting that up to the two pump outlet which will power that drill or power the appliance that you have but that is not a safe scenario in this case if there was a short where the hot side let's say on that piece of appliance was to connect with a piece of metal thus turning that piece of metal into the hot side then you are creating the path to ground and can get in a situation where you can get yourself hurt or killed now let's show why the gfci in an ungrounded situation where you do not have a ground wire is a better solution so we have an install gfci you're just going to have the hot and neutrals installed i did this in a prior video where i was swapping out that two two-prong and installing gfcis in a rental unit you plug in a three-prong outlet which is expecting an equipment ground and we have that same scenario where the piece of equipment has a short where the hot side connects to a piece of metal and then you come along or somebody else comes along and touches that piece of metal well in that instance the gfci still provides protection and that's because the gfci always monitors the difference between the hot and neutral sides and all that's needed to be detected different between the hot and neutral because in normal operation you're expecting what current goes out the hot to flow back through the neutral so in the case where there's an alternate path so let's say there was a short you touch the piece of metal and now you are an alternate path some current can go through you to ground well that will be detected so that current would not be going back through neutral and that difference or delta is detected in the gfci and in as small as five milliamps usually for a fraction of a second that will shut down your gfci and that will shut down the appliance and that will save you from being electrocuted in a bad situation so that is why the ground actually has nothing to do with the gfci tripping because it's the monitoring of the hot and neutrals and when that difference is detected that's when it cuts off the power and again independent of the ground wire itself now one thing to note which can cause some confusion is if you have an inspector come through or you're doing it yourself you have a gsci outlet they want to make sure that they're still working because remember there is a serviceable life of about 10 or 15 years on gfci outlets they take their trusty klein outlet tester with the gfci tester they plug it in and they press the test button to make sure it trips well it will not trip in this situation so why this is the case is because this small button actually connects ground to the hot side and trips it well in our scenario we don't have a ground so when you press this it's actually not connecting anything to that hot side and it's not exercising your gfci so something to be aware of is that can cause a bit of confusion if you're going to be doing a similar project where you're going to be updating this two-prong to gfci don't forget also called out by code you need to appropriately label your face plates to let anybody else know that this gfci does not have an equipment ground and likewise if you have duplex outlets that are running from the load side on your gfci in our gfci protected one we want to call out that they're gfci protected and two we also want to say that this does not have an equipment ground so just know you do need a label appropriately if you're doing a similar project on your own home now hopefully that helped you out and cleared things up if you guys still have questions jump down in the comments let me know also if i left anything out and you guys have experience you're professional you're a master electrician i always appreciate you guys as feedback and if there's a common issue that i missed i will pin that to a comment at the top so everybody else can see it and learn from it now don't forget if you haven't checked it out already you'll see a link down in the description to our amazon store that is something i'm continuously updating with things like this outlet tester which are the best tools targeted to diy-ers it's kind of combination of price quality and functionality and my highest recommendation as you're building out the different tools so you can do more projects safely around the house now if you want to check out that video specifically on how to swap out a two-prong outlet to a gfci outlet check out this video right here and it'll walk you through the complete process so thanks for joining me on this video and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 279,061

Keywords: GFCI, gfci outlet installation, everyday home repairs, common electrical mistakes

Id: SPViPA7It8o

Length: 6min 35sec (395 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 28 2022