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I have a two conductor outlet that has a cheater plug in it, then 2x (3 conductor) power strips (daisy chained) plugged into that. Powers bedside lights, phone chargers, low current things like that. Wiring is knob and tube, so there is no ground. I can't rip open the walls to pull a ground (2nd floor, lath and plaster). I'd like to eliminate the daisy chaining and the cheater plug. Can I replace the outlet with a GFCI and float the ground? Is this wise? Apparently GFCI + the old knob and berries can cause frequent nuance trips and there is no way to know, until I start messing with it. I am doing this as I am on a crusade to banish all cheap/lovely plastic MOV surge suppressor strips as I view them as a fire hazard. I have been replacing them with UL listed metal housing strips, and I installed a $$$ suppressor device on my main panel. I don't actually have to change anything here, there isn't an immediate problem other than the one I am making. A buddy's buddy had his garage burn down with the cause being a lovely decade old surge suppressor.
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Dec 20, 2020 02:39
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I don't have any grounded appliances. The ONLY purpose to cheater plug (which I want to get rid of) is to enable me to get more outlets further away via power strip. I can't find a "2 conductor" power strips, hence cheater plug. The bed has two sides, I can get two strips with long enough cables, the outlet is two plugs, so I won't need to daisy chain. Getting a 3 conductor outlet seems the easiest way, just not sure if this is wise... I hadn't thought about surface mount, and that dodges the entire issue as I'd just install 2 conductor outlets. That could be a real simple solution. The only surge suppressors I want in the house are on the main panel. The whole point of this is to rid myself of these cheap lovely suppressor strips. I've been buying these ugly bastards and chopping up the plastic ones.
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Dec 20, 2020 04:35
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Elviscat thanks for the code reference, sounds like what I am thinking is possibly supportable by code. I'd have to traverse up, then over, then up inside a wall. Is feasible? Is there a tool that can do this sort of thing? Do you have any advice re: knob n tube with GFCI? Or is this more a "try it and find out" situation. Those buncha-Metal-oxide-varistors in plastic housinh are the garbage I am trying to purge from my life. I ended up installing a Eaton MOV/Filter hybrid on my main panel. Which is still a MOV. But it was more than $5 at wal-mart and by a "real" brand, so hopefully I have made sensible risks. From my understanding, MOVs slowly fail over time, and when failed they fail short. Because these are used in bargain basement power strips that are made of flammable garbage, they can burn your house down. MOV failure is independent of the load on the circuit, but is sensitive to voltage. So very old units have seen enough excursions to fail catastrophically
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Dec 20, 2020 06:23
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Elviscat posted:When you say "up and over" you mean for a second outlet on the other side? Up-and-over I meant from the basement inside the walls to get to the bedroom. I'll check out the balloon framing tip, good idea, the basement is full so no crawlspace. Might buy one of those $20 endoscope thingies on Amazon and peep into the walls. Replacing the outlet with a un-grounded GFCI w/ a label is my path forward. Thanks!
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Dec 20, 2020 18:20
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About 100 posts back in this thread the conclusion was for me to install a GFCI into my knob and tube outlet and mark it as "NO EQUIPMENT GROUND". I have done this and the outlet works fine. A follow up question. I attempted to manipulate the K&T as little as possible. Because of this and the fact that the GFCI unit is much larger than the previous outlet, the exposed terminal and wire are extremely close (possibly touching) to the side wall of the metal outlet box. I used rated 3m electrical tape and put it on both sides of the GFCI, completely covering both terminals and exposed copper conductor. Is this legit? What should be done? Fixing the entire K&T situation is not in the budget at the moment.
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Jan 3, 2021 03:05
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hmmmm ok, so even if the plastic housing of the GFCI is in contact with the metal box, it should be fine? The tape is not needed? I am extremely paranoid of messing with K&T enough to pull out the box and replace it.
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Jan 3, 2021 04:53
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Should I replace every outlet at my place? So over the past few years, I've had weird outlet failures: A main outlet I use in the garage have always been "loose" and only make contact if the plug is just so. Replaced it last year. An outlet in the kitchen that the toaster was plugged into was visibly sparking behind the outlet plate. Replaced it two years ago. In one of the bedrooms I plugged a space heater in, and later it stopped working. I unplugged it and the cable was EXTREMELY HOT. Replaced it 3 years ago. Today, I installed a new dishwasher. The dishwasher "quits" into the heating cycle and doesn't have power (no breaker trip). I plugged it in via extension cord to a different outlet, works fine now. The dishwasher was the point that put all these events together in my brain. These outlets were installed in the 1970s, should I replace all of them in my place? Should I replace light switches too? What other wiring or outlets could be tainted? (no aluminum wiring anywhere, despite 1970s)
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Jul 3, 2022 05:49
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I think my outlets have failed and I am replacing them all. High wattage appliances would turn off (toaster, dishwasher) after running for a bit. I traced it down to the outlet. This outlet had an absolute crapload of ants in it, the copper turned green?  I cut back the insulated wires and stripped them to clean copper. I sanded the grounds with emery cloth. They looked like this:  Some questions: Is sanding the grounds to shiny copper ok? There is not enough clean copper in the box to cut back. The original outlets have two ground wires jammed under the screw, this doesn't seem right? I put a pigtail thing and wago'd the three together, is this correct? The boxes are metal, but are not bonded to ground directly, the frame of the outlet smooshing against the box seems to be the thing grounding the box. Should I do something different? I did a 7 outlets this way, did 21 minutes per outlet on average. Multiplying out, going to take NINE HOURS to do the first floor. Holy smokes I hope I get faster at this. I have 3 more buildings with the same crappy outlets. If I spend a bunch of time doing this, I want it to be as correct as possible without opening up the walls.
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Oct 1, 2023 00:27
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H110Hawk posted:Looks good to me but I am not an electrician. You will get faster as you get calloused and the hang of stripping wire. Do you have an auto-stripper? That makes it much faster. The main panel? We don't look at the main panel. It is inherently cursed.  Now a cursed brand? I have no idea? Also this is not the main panel but merely a leaf on the huge tree of electrical clusterfuck this place is. There are 6 buildings all with 240. I killed power to the building with the outlets I am replacing, but the non-contact voltage detector beeped a multi gang switch + outlet box? Hmmmmmm..... Turns out one of the outdoor lighting circuits is a 4-way, with switches in multiple buildings. I ended up flipping the enormous disconnect (400 amps! Two meters! Need that for electric heat) I do not have an auto stripper! Neat, $40 seems like a reasonable tool.
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Oct 1, 2023 01:37
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Oh poo poo carpenter ants! I dont see any frass in that box. I will look into this
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Oct 1, 2023 01:38
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Leatherman wave+ cutter/pliers, screwdriver set (bunch of flats and phillips), one of those $7 harbor freight wire strippers that sorta look like scissors. Now that I've typed it out yea, this sounds like crap! Ok, an auto stripper, better cutters (diag or linesman) are probably reasonable tools to go buy, maybe more depending on cost Snipping off the old receptacles is a good idea. A lot of time seems spent on getting those loops out from around the screws on the old outlet.
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Oct 1, 2023 02:48
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Ok, how screwed am I here. 1970s home, metallic conduit with copper conductors. Conduit is ground. I am replacing some switches with smart switches. Before I bought them, I confirmed my switch box has neutrals. While I was in there, I noticed that the neutral was tied to ground in the box. I understand this to be bad and unsafe, as now the ground has a potential path to normally carry current.  So I replaced the switch, removed that illegal neutral-to-ground, and now the lights don't work. With my multimeter, I see a 120v potential between neutral and ground, 0v potential between neutral and hot. I think whoever wired this used the conduit for NEUTRAL! I went to a nearby outlet to try and pull a neutral from there, to discover that outlet no longer works, it is also tied back through the switchbox conduit. Of course there are wires going out of this problem outlet, off to someplace else to cause me problems. I am going to get a licensed electrician in here, but closest appointment is Monday. What do I do till then? Should I put the illegal neutral to ground connection back? I just don't know what else is now connected only to hot or the ramifications of this.
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Mar 1, 2024 21:04
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kastein posted:I would leave it off for now. In fact I would turn off the breaker for that whole circuit if possible. I think you're right on the money with the conduit as neutral theory and that's definitely not ok. I ended up leaving it off, this seemed wise. Shifty Pony posted:I bet that somewhere along the daisy chain of devices there's a missed neutral connection which the ground-neutral connection in that box was hiding. Leave the circuit off and make note of what else doesn't work. If you feel up to it open up those boxes looking for a neutral that isn't hooked up (or a janky connection), otherwise just having a good idea of what is on that circuit will help out the electrician. Going to go digging into the boxes tomorrow. Not going to cancel the electrician till I find it though! I definitely panicked when this first happened, but watching youtubes on "open neutral" I might be able to figure it out... I have counted 4 switch boxes (totaling 10 switches), 5 light fixtures, 5 outlets, and one day/night photocell. A few of these being outdoors. I have a feeling I will be in the attic very soon, knees throbbing as I scrabble across 16" on centers.
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Mar 2, 2024 03:40
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