Help with Electrical Wiring ,please

[travelingart]

I am re-wiring some of the boxes in a 30's vintage cottage. The old rubber wiring is crumbling in the steel boxes. Currently the house has the original ridgid conduit and some romex from a previous owner.

After installing a new recepticle and grounding the recepticle to the steel box which is connected to conduit to the panel, I am only getting 83 volts across the ground and the hot.

A plug in detector indicates the recepticle is installed properly. Voltage between the hot and neutral is 123 volts.

What are the suspected problems and how can I identify where that problem(s) is?

Thanks so much for yuor help,much obliged

T

[RBM]

Looks like your ground path is not in good shape. How about pulling a grounding conductor through the conduit and attaching it to the ground buss in the panel and the box at the outlet. There should be plenty of room after replacing rubber covered conductors with THHN

[John Grabowski]

It sounds as though you have a bad ground connection somewhere. I would start in the fuse box (Or do you have circuit breakers?). You should check your ground connections and also make sure the conduit connections are tight. You should have a bond between ground and neutral in the fuse box. This can be in the form of a screw or a jumper wire or strip to the fuse box metal frame. Check that connection. If you have a separate main fuse or main circuit breakers the bond connection may be in there. It is also possible, though least likely that the bond between neutral and ground is in the electric meter socket.

While you're doing all this you should also check your ground connection to the water pipe. Make sure that it is clean and not loose or corroded. If it is in bad shape you should replace. Sand the pipe down to clean metal before installing a new water pipe ground clamp.

If those connections are all good, then you need to check all the ground and conduit connections downstream. Make sure all locknuts are tight. Hit the locknuts with a light hammer and a screwdriver to tighten them.