2-prong outlet, 3-prong power strip

[Surfwospam]

I'm trying to help a neighbor set up a computer and printer that her out-of-state son shipped to her.

My neighbor's house was build in the 1960s and only has two-prong outlets. In the past, whenever she wanted to use a 3-prong plug device, she just used an adapter.

I'm wondering if it would be okay to plug in the surge protector/power strip her son sent into a 3-prong adapter and then plug that into the 2-prong wall outlet. There would be three devices plugged into the power strip/surge protector: a CPU, monitor, and printer.

Specifically, I want to make sure we're not risking starting an electrical fire (or some other calamity).

If she does need to get an outlet turned into a 3-prong outlet, what elements would the electrician take into account in his price (e.g., distance from switch box) and what's your best guess on what that might cost?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

Surf

[Greg]

The first thing I would do is be sure if there is a ground present in the box. A lot of older houses used a grounded system but installed 2 prong outlets. If so the adapter works as long as you connect the ground tab to the center screw. With that connected try a 3 light tester. Better is to use a self grounding recptacle ... all assuming a ground is actually present in the box. If there is no ground present she really should try to get a circuit pulled in for the PC. Surge protectors are not very good without a ground.

[m Ransley]

A surge protector does not have a discharge path without a ground.

[Greg]

Surge protectors discharge most of the surge as heat in the MOVs. You will have no neutral to ground protection tho.

[maradcliff]

In the time it took you to type your message, you could have replaced the outlet with a 3 prong one. They cost about One Dollar. Just be sure the outlet (green screw) is grounded to the box with a short piece of green or bare wire. A home built in the 60's should have a ground in the box. Just be sure you follow the same wiring that was used. The black or red wires go to the BRASS colored screws, the White wires go to the SILVER colored screws, and the green screw is the ground. Not too dificult to do. Be sure to shut off the power when you do the job.

[J Kelly]

Around here many homes built in the early 60's do not have grounds in the box. The last two houses I have owned have not had a ground, and they were built in '60 and '62. They use the cloth covered 2 wire romex. All of the early '60s houses I looked at were the same, but one built in '69 did have 3 wire romex.

[Speedy Jim]

Don't just bet on the box being grounded! Grounding recepts were just being phased in during the mid 60's. And not every section of this great land adopted grounding simultaneously. The box ground path needs to be checked and verified before replacing any 2-prong recept.

Jim

[Greg]

The real trick was having a house built to "GI Bill" or FHA standards (common around Washington DC). Our 1951 house in Md had 3 wire Romex even though the receptacles were 2 prong. We retrofitted them to 3 prong in the early 60s.

[maradcliff]

It looks like the states varied quite a bit back then. The city I was from had strict codes. Everything exposed had to be in conduit, such as in the basement. Where I went thru walls, it was all steel encased BX. This was code long before the 60's. My parents home for example, was built in 1951, and had all of this. In fact, if it were not for the 2-prong outlets and plug fuses, those were probably the most durable electrical systems ever used in homes. ALL the houses in that area were like that. I even put conduit and BX in my own home that I built in 79, just because that is how I had always seen things wired, and although romex w/ground was allowed, I refused to use it back then. In the 50's and early 60's, Romex was not allowed at all in the city, but I would see that cloth covered stuff on farms and in rural areas.

[Rich123]

NEC says you can simply change rec to gfci marked as no equiptmen groun

-- Rich123

[Dan]

The NEC does allow that, but a surge supressor won't function reliably without an equipment ground. To properly protect the computer equipment a properly grounded outlet should be installed.

Dan

[ted]

What a ridiculous response.

[Dan Espen]

You so funny. I'm not the Dan you replied to, but that was 16 years ago. What a ridiculous response indeed.

You may or may not know this, but most of the posts on homeowners hub are actually from Usenet.

On Usenet, we don't see old posts, only the most recent posts and replies. The post you just replied to is 16 years old. Please check the dates and if you feel you must reply, please include the original post in your reply.

Better yet, get a Usenet account. You can do this for free.

[micky]

I thought it was deep and inspiring. Almost sublime.

[Jim Joyce]

My provider keeps 4000 days worth of posts for this group, or roughly 11 years. I configure my newsreader to only show 'new' messages, but the old stuff is there if you want it.

I agree, 16 years is a bit old in this context.

[trader_4]

Since someone started this thread up again, might as well point out that if you were to plug a 3 prong surge protector into a two prong ungrounded receptacle using an adapter, there are a few issues.

First, it's an old system and it's unlikely that a ground is present at the receptacle box. An adapter is really supposed to be used by using the wire to ground to the box via the cover screw. But very few are used that way and even then unless the box is grounded, which is unlikely, it's useless. So if you did that, the computer and anything else plugged into the strip would not be grounded.

Next is the issue of what happens to the surge protection. Without a ground, that path for the surge to dissipate is gone. You would still have clamping though that would limit the voltages between the conductors and between the conductors and the strip and PC ground. So you'd have some protection, but not the best. A GFCI would provide safety protection from faults that could be dangerous without a ground, but it won't change the surge protection issue as there still is no ground.

[gfretwell]

The only way to be sure about the ground is by using a bug eye tester with the adapter bonded to the screw or by visual inspection. Grounding the boxes predates the universal use of 5-15 receptacles by at least a decade tho. My old house was built in 1954 and it had grounded boxes with 1-15 receptacles. That was using the paper covered Romex and the 16ga grounding conductor. That smaller conductor is probably sufficient for grounding purposes but in 68 they made it full size for 14ga-10ga cables. I am not sure exactly when grounding the boxes showed up in the NEC but it had to be early 50s, late 40s. YMMV depending on when your AHJ adopted the code.

[Tekkie©]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:53:59 -0500, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

What is a bug eye detector? Never heard that..

[gfretwell]

One of those 3 lamp testers

[trader_4]

Looks like a large plug, you plug it in to a receptacle, it has three LEDs from which you can determine if there is a ground, if the hot and neutral are reversed, etc.