How Not To Ground An Electrical Outlet - Wire Outlets Right

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(electricity sizzling) - [Jeff] Now as we pull down at out the outlet, you can see here, we notice something here. See this right here? This is, they took the ground wire, didn't even leave any decent parts of it that was copper, and they just wrapped it around a painted part of this screw boss here. That is a lesson, folks, in how not to ground an outlet. This outlet is not protected, it is not grounded. So anyway, we're going to be putting in a new outlet switch, and then remember this is a metal box, so we need to make sure that this metal box is grounded and bonded to the system ground. We're gonna put a green ground screw right there, see that hole right there, that's meant to house a green ground screw. We're going to wrap this copper wire around it and connect it up properly to the new switch. ♪ Yo this all right, and this all right ♪ ♪ Too good to be true ♪ ♪ Yo this all right, and this all right ♪ ♪ Too good ♪ - Hey, everybody, Jeff here, and welcome back to our channel. If this is your first time visiting us, this is a great time for you to take a look at the subscription button down below and even wanna click on that so you can be aware of all of the other videos that we put out to help you. So this is all for you, my friends. And at the same time, when you subscribe, make sure you click on that bell icon right next to it that'll appear when you subscribe because it doesn't make any sense if you subscribe without being alerted to every time we put up a new video, okay? And then if you have any questions at all, leave them down in the comments, and we'll answer them for you. So let's get started with today's project. Okay, so now, let's show you the proper way to ground one of these boxes. So we're gonna have to clean this off first. So I usually use this blue emery sandpaper tape here. This is what the plumbers use for doin' a little abrasive sanding on the pipes before they solder. So see how this is nice and shiny copper now. That's how you make a nice, good conductor. (sandpaper scraping) Just like that. So you can see what we've done is we've wrapped the wire around a ground screw now. So now this metal box is gonna be, it's already bonded to the system ground. Then if you look here, real close here, see how the way they ran those wires into the back of the switch there? That's a big no-no. Look how much, he's left almost 1/4 of an inch of bare, exposed conductor, that's a major, major no-no. And this is what we find a lot down here with the builders. Like I said before in our other videos, the builders overcharge you big time, and this is the kind of quality work they give you. They just hire the lowest-paid, dumbest guy in the world to do all their work, and this is what you're left with. So we're going to put a better switch in anyway. We're going to be putting this switch in, and you can see it has its own ground screw on there that we're going to connect it up to. So let's fix this problem right now. All right, so there you can see we've finally got it connected up. We added a pigtail wire because the amount of ground wire that they gave you was too short here. Same with the black and the white wires were too short. I mean, these guys are so dumb it's like any chance they get to violate the National Electrical Code, they will. You're supposed to have six inches of wire coming out of a box. So because of that, because of their foolish mistake, what we did was we had to, you'll see back in the corner there, we stuck in one of these WAGO wiring nuts, and this is what they look like. So you put the two wires in there, and then you snap the doors down, (wiring nut snaps) like this, and it holds the wires together nice and tight so you have a nice, tight connection. Then you run the other end of this pigtail over here to the outlet, so now you're perfectly fine. And it's okay if the ground here has a little bit of insulation peeled away. That's not a problem because there's no conductor there, it's not carrying current. So now, I'm just gonna see if I can get a piece of black tape, green tape, electrical tape wrapped around the outlet there, 'cause I always like to cover the terminals to protect anybody who comes in later to do any work and maybe they leave the power on or something. And before I do, I wanted to show you how I wired it. See how we put it so that the wire comes right up so that the insulation just touches the outside of the screw-down plate there. You don't want the insulation to go behind the plate 'cause the plate has to push against the metal part of the wire, so you only stop it right at the edge of the metal plate there. It looks a lot better than the way the original builder did it. Okay. And that leaves you with a nice, clean bundle there, so if anybody ever touches that, they won't get shocked. So now if you focus your attention on the back, you'll see I plugged up to those two holes there, plus we went ahead and smoothed down with some silicone here around these cracks here so the cigarette smoke won't come in from the nextdoor neighbor's condo. So I think the smell is pretty much gone now, so we've successfully at least kept it from coming in from this spot. So you get two repairs in one here today. Okay, so there we are, the Decora switch is all screwed in. And always remember, before you screw it in, always remember to look and make sure it says Top. Now, you're probably, can't see it there, maybe you can, but engraved in the metal there it'll say Top, and that's how you know you're switch is right-side up. Otherwise, you'll plug it in, screw all the plates in and everything, and you're gonna find out that your switch was upside-down. Okay, now this step is the, is what differentiates what we're doing with what everybody else does. We're putting this little gasket in here, and that also helps seal, it keeps your air conditioning from escaping out through your outlet and into the wall, and it also would seal in the case there was any cigarette smoke in there from the nextdoor neighbor. So when we put the plate on here, it's gonna squeeze this gasket up against the wall and cut everything off, there's no air is gonna get in or out of here. And I always use these metal plates, I like these. These are super wide, they're wide on the side and taller on the top, so that'll help you in case you every have any holes that were cut in the drywall too big. And these metal plates are good 'cause you can see there's a little bit of curvature to the wall here. So I can screw this better to the wall than a plastic plate. The plastic ones will crack. (plate pops) And here is your finished product. And I normally like to leave both of my screws pointing straight up, it looks aesthetically better. And you can see it's nice and snug here, and there's no more cigarette smoke coming in from the nextdoor neighbor's unit. Okay, so we have this electrical outlet here in the bathroom, you can see how close it is to the sink. And we were gonna take this outlet outta here. We're gonna put a new one in anyway. Our plan was to put in a GFI outlet because it's required by code anyway anytime you have an outlet within six feet of a sink or water that you have to have it as a GFI, it's gotta be GFI protected. But we discovered something here when we pulled this outlet out. So if you look at what they did here, see they looped the white wire there, the common, and they also looped the black wire, and that's not a problem here. Does anybody here see what the problem is? Do you guys see what's missing here? If you look closely at these wires here, we see a black wire, we see a white wire, and what's missing here? Well, there's no ground, that means this outlet was never grounded, that's extremely dangerous to do that. And on top of that, they probably thought, oh, I'll just screw it to the front of this outlet box, and I'll be grounded. Well, that's not true, probably for a couple of reasons, because it's painted on the front, first of all. Second of all, the box itself is not bonded. That means, see that, you can see that in the back there, and they got paint all over it, these are the ground wires here coming up and through there, they're feeding through the box, but nowhere are they wrapped around a ground screw. So we're gonna see if we can't fix that right now by putting a ground screw in there. And you can see there's a hole in the back there, right there where my finger's pointing, that is where we could potentially put in a green ground screw and try to wrap some of this ground wire around it. I don't know how, whether we'll really be able to. We're gonna try our best, we're gonna have to sand off some of that paint, get it nice and shiny and coppery and twist another piece of ground wire around that, wrap it to the post, and then have another pigtail ground come off of our ground post or ground screw, and that pigtail will then come and feed the outlet. But the way the previous electricians had implemented it, they totally blew it, dropped the ball in probably three different ways here, but we see this kind of stuff all the time, and we're always ready to deal with it when we do see it. So let's get busy fixing it. Well, you can see here, we were pretty successful at finding a good ground here. So what we did was, we found the ground wire that was comin' through the box. It was coming in from one Romex connector here, and it was going in and coming out, just passing through the box and going up and out through that other one that you see up there. So what we had to do is, first had to sand this wire down, and I did that with this emery paper here, this is like a little sandpaper, and that got all the paint off it and made it nice and shiny and coppery and nice and bare, and we make, you form a loop out of the wire, and then we stuck it through our screw, we stuck the screw through it and into the screw boss end of the box. And then this is our pigtail. This pigtail is gonna go to the outlet. So now, this is the way the electrician should have done it in the first place. Don't ask me why they didn't do it that way. I just have no idea how builders get away with this stuff, but it still blows my mind how they overcharge you and overcharge you and overcharge you way above market value for a new house, and then this is how they treat you. It's just terrible, there's no excuse for this! And so this is the proper way to ground it. So what you can see what happens is, any ground that came through this box is now attached to the metal body of the box, and electrical code, National Electrical Code, requires a metal outlet box, whether it be a switch or an outlet, has to be bonded to the system ground, and this is how you do it! So now we're ready to go ahead and install the GFI outlet. Well, we just had to do one quick thing here before we put the outlet in. You can see I had to add a lot of silicone caulk around the edge of the outlet there. That's how we seal it to keep the cigarette smell from coming in from the unit next door. So you know, typical with these 55 and older condos, you get one of these old-timers that just smoke like crazy. Oh man, it's terrible! So anyway, we got most of it up. But you know, these outlet boxes all have little holes in them, and you can see where I had to put in patches of silicone there to close those off. So there's no more openings anywhere, and there's even a couple on the side there, probably can't see it, but they're inside there on the side. We had to get in there and at 'em. So some of these people, they just smoke like factories, they're like chimneys, man, and you know, you could take the tar out of their lungs and re-coat the whole parking lot and save the HOA some money. All right, so here you can see we've got both the white wires on the left side, and we have both the black wires are connected up on the right-hand side. So the upper two are the line which go up here and out the wall to the fusebox there. And this bottom pair here that you see coming out of the bottom of the back there, they go to the next unit down. So all we're gonna do is hook this up to the box there, turn the power back on, and test it. And remember, when you get these from the factory, you're gonna freak out, go, hey, wait a minute, why isn't it coming on when you first turn it on from the fuse panel? You still gotta hit this reset button because they come from the factory already reset. And I also wanted to point out to you just one other thing. These are tamper-proof, so they have little rubber things in there that keep little kids from sticking metal objects in there. Anything other than a plug, it shouldn't allow. This is a great time for you to take a look at the subscription button down below and even wanna click on it. When you subscribe, make sure you click on that bell icon right next to it that'll appear when you subscribe because it doesn't make any sense if you subscribe without being alerted to every time we put up a new video, okay? And then if you have any questions at all, leave them down in the comments, and we'll answer them for you.
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Channel: jeffostroff
Views: 215,807
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: how to ground an electrical outlet, how to ground an electrical box, how to ground an electrical outlet box, how to ground a light switch, grounding and bonding, grounding an electrical outlet, grounding an electrical box, grounding light switch, bad wiring, grounding light switch box, how to wire an electrical outlet, how to ground an outlet, bad wiring to outlet, Sparky Channel, how to ground an outlet in an old house, bad ground, no ground wire in outlet, outlet, electrical
Id: M5xXIG2MEpM
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)
Published: Sat Sep 22 2018
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