How to Fix an Open Ground

hi this is bill for Sparky channel comm today I'm going to show you how to fix a receptacle that has an open ground this means that this particular receptacle is not hooked up to the grounding system of the house the first thing to do is plug in an outlet tester into the receptacle and notice what light pattern you get in this case we get one green light on the left and then two blanks and if you look on the index one green light on the left and two blank lights is open ground this means that this receptacle isn't hooked up to the grounding system of the house it's always much better to have grounded receptacles because this will protect people from dangerous events like lightning strikes and power surges once we've determined that it's an open ground the first thing what you do is test our voltage detector I'll put it into the hot slot and you see it it it lights up and has an audible beep so we see that the voltage tester is working properly also test all the outlets on the circuit to see what's happening in the whole circuit so this is the next outlet on the circuit and we see that this one is if you look on the index this one is correctly wired so this one has a ground so we're found out some important information here using our outlet tester so we found that this receptacle here has an open ground but that this receptacle right here is wired correctly the next thing I'm going to do is turn off the circuit breaker okay the circuit breaker is off and our outlet tester indicates that these circuit breaker is off plug it in over here and that says off as well and we can use our voltage detector and it says it's off so all the testers agree that the circuit breaker is off now we'll remove the wallplate from the receptacle that has an open ground and move their receptacle and we'll see what's going on I've loosened up the receptacle and the first thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna use my falsies detector and see if there isn't a Hotwire back in the back of the box or something like that and we see that all the electricity is indeed off so we'll pull this out and we see that there's a neutral wire and a hot wire but there's no ground wire so that's our problem here there's there is no ground wire if you see a broken ground wire a or a ground wire that is not hooked up to the green grounding terminal then that's an easy fix you just hook the ground wire to the green grounding terminal but this is a situation where there's no ground wire in the box however this box right here tested as correct wiring so we know there's a ground in here a proper ground so it may be possible to remove the cable going from this receptacle to this receptacle and bring a ground wire to this one but to do that we're going to have to check for continuity that will tell us if this receptacle is the next upstream receptacle from this one that is one receptacle closer to the main panel if so we can change out the cable going from this box to this box and bring a ground to this box I'm now loosened up this receptacle and I'm going to test with my voltage detector back in the back of the box make sure there's no live wires at all in this box there are none and so now let's see what's going on with the ground here we have the hot wires you see there's three hot wires one coming from the power source one going over to the next receptacle and one going to the receptacle so that's proper here we have the neutral yeah this was the same situation with three so that's proper okay here we have the grounds and you can see we got one green wire going to the receptacle we got one bare ground wire coming in from the power source and we have one grounding pigtail right back here it's called the equipment grounding conductor in the codebook there is no ground wire in this cable right here going to the next receptacle so this is the problem this is perhaps a two wire cable that would be found in a 1950's 1960s early 1970s house this this box has been upgraded to have grounding but the next box has not been upgraded yet so that's how we got to this situation where this box was grounded and but the adjacent box is not grounded so we've identified the problem now we have to determine if we can solve this problem by changing out this cable and the way we're going to do that is test for continuity I've removed this receptacle and there's their white neutral and your black hot now on this box I'm going to isolate the black hot and the white neutral that goes to the next receptacle I'm going to test it for continuity so here's the black hot that goes to the next receptacle okay here's the white neutral that goes to the next receptacle so if isolated these two wires and these two wires we have to check for continuity perhaps these receptacles would be in a bedroom and they're maybe five feet apart something like that so you suspect that they might be continuous but you have to check to make sure this is my ex Tech Wireless continuity tester and so I'm going to turn it on and you see I have the red lead connected to the black hot wire and the black lead connected to the white neutral wire and then this is the wireless component to the tester and we can actually test both sets of wires simultaneously with this tester which is a really nice feature of it so I'll put just as I did over here I'll put the red on the black wire and I'll put the black on the white wire and you see it is saying continuity continuity so this black Hotwire is this black Hotwire and this white neutral is this white neutral so now we know that this box is upstream one receptacle from this box and you see there's only one cable coming in this box we know this is the end of the run so this has to be upstream so what we're going to do now is change out this cable right here it comes out over here and we're going to put in a 12-2 with ground cable I have prepared a replacement cable to run from this box to this box that has the ground it has the bare copper ground wire which is what we need to bring the ground to this box I have to say though that this is this can be a very difficult process in real life with drywall or plaster walls and it can involve crawling up in attics or crawling underneath the house and fishing cable through the walls and so forth so changing out a cable like this it really should be left to professionals so this is strictly for educational purposes only just to show you how it would be done I have removed the old cable that didn't have the ground wire in it but before proceeding further I'd like to do another test and that is simply test for a voltage I've set up my digital multimeter and I've got one lead on the black wire and one lead on the white neutral wire of the cable that brings the energy into the box and I'm just going to temporarily turn on the circuit breaker ok the circuit breaker is temporarily on and we have a hundred and twenty-one volts so that's very sufficient voltage I've got the circuit breaker off now and the digital multimeter says that the voltage is off and I'll just double check real quick with my voltage detector make sure nothing's hot I have installed the new cable see this cable has the ground wire and that's the that's the big difference in a real situation you'd probably be taken out on cables like from the 1950s and it's good to take about anyway because they get frayed and worn and so forth and they get dangerous after a while so we have installed a brand new cable it's called a 12-2 because there's two conductors with ground we'll start with the ground wires and we happen to have a wah go lever nut here so it's a very simple process of putting the ground wire all the way into woggels every nut and clicking the lever down then put the grounds back into the back of the box now we'll hook up the neutral this is the neutral going to the receptacle and this is the neutral coming from the power source so we just connect these together again we're using a Woggle lever nut this makes it quite simple just put it right in there click it down you can always check make sure they're in Oliver very well and we're going to push this into the back of the box now we'll hook up the hot hook up the Woggle that nut put it in click it down and we'll push this into the back of the box now I'll put a couple wraps of black electricians tape around the receptacle for safety I have now added a grounding pigtail to the box they have firmly connected it with a screw right here now I'm going to install the receptacle in this box and first I'm going to hook up the grounds and I'll use a three connector where gold overnight first I'll put the grounding pigtail it bonds the box then I'll hook up the ground that's coming from the upstream receptacle and now this is a pigtail that I'm going to run to the receptacle itself now I'll put the grounding wire around the green terminal in a clockwise manner and tighten it down securely you know I'll take the white neutral wire and put it to the silver terminal and tighten it down securely now I'll take the black hot wire and put it to the bronze terminal and tighten it down securely now I'll take a couple wraps of black electricians tape and wrap it around the receptacle for safety now you need to dress the wires which is to put appropriate bends in them so that the receptacle goes in easily and what I do is it push this down with your thumb like that push this down with your thumb like that push this went down with your thumb like that so that's one band I think just kind of goes in like an accordion tighten down the receptacles then put on the wall plates now I've turned the circuit breaker back on I'm going to plug in my outlet tester to see if we're correctly wired and we are let me test the upper outlet as well and that's good and we can test the upstream receptacle and we see that that one is wired correctly as well that's how you fix an open ground I'll put links in my video description for the Fluke voltage detector the fluke one one seven electricians multimeter as well as the fluke alligator clip set and the fluke soft case also I'll put links for the wogo lever nets in the two three and five connector sizes as well as the multi pack and I'll put a link for the new Woggle lever nets in the 10 gauge sizes the X Tech wireless continuity tester the Milwaukee 3-piece 1000 volt insulated screwdriver set and the ideal circuit breaker finder which includes that transmitter which can be used as a really good outlet tester the receiver and the transmitter together make an excellent circuit breaker fighter thanks I hope this video was helpful

Channel: Sparky Channel

Views: 610,536

Keywords: receptacle, outlet, dangerous receptacle, dangerous outlet, miswired receptacle, miswired outlet, outlet problems, receptacle problems, voltage tester, DMM, multimeter, fluke, Klein, Milwaukee, electrical tools, electrical testers, electrical field, hot chassis, neutral and hot reversed, Identify Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground Receptacles, Sparky Channel, Sparky, Ideal circuit breaker finder, Outlet tester, Open hot, open hot receptacle, open ground, open ground receptacle

Id: pL8dNYmDF7Y

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020