I recently purchased a new free standing range from Best Buy. The salesman also sold me a three prong power cord. I didn't think too much of it, until reading some of these posts. The house was built in 1987, and currently ha s a three prong outlet connected to a 40 amp breaker. Would it be safe to s ay that I need an electrician to come in and rewire the range outlet? The n ew range is already in place, but if ranges of today differ from ranges of days gone by...I'd like to know. This is my first house and I would really like to make sure it's safe.
The 3 wire plug is still legal if that was the way it was originally wired. Just be sure the bonding strap is in place in the range connecting the neutral to the case of the range. If you want to check the wiring, be sure the neutral connections are tight in the panel and at the receptacle.
There is a chance that it is still wired with a 4 wire cable. If so, it will be easy to use the 4 wire receptacle. Otherwise I would not worry about it.
The code only applies to new installations, not simple replacement of cord and plug connected equipment. As I pointed out, if this was wired with Romex, there should be a neutral and a ground wire in there anyway. If it was wired with SE cable, they could have used 3 wire.
You might see 8/2 with ground Romex but that was never legal. The neutral has to be an insulated white wire with the only exception of using SE cable.
Three wire ranges have been safely used for many decades. I don't see this as a big deal. Unless you (like Philo) are an electrian. And want to make money for brother sparkys.
I installed a new stove about 2 months ago. Similar to you . The house was built in the 1980's with a 3 wire type outlet. I installed the new plug on the stove myself and made sure the strap that goes from the frame of the stove is connected to the neutral wiring post on the stove.
I feel safe doing it this way. As a retired industrial electrician that worked with circuits up to 480 volt 3 phase almost every day I would not have something around the house that I did not think was safe.
There is no need to go to a seperate ground wire if the circuit is already in the house as it met the code when installed. At the breaker box the neutral and ground wire go to the same place, so all you are doing is running 2 parallel wires so to speak. While the seperate ground wire is slightly safer, it is not enought to matter in most cases, especially if all the wiring is in good shape.
I look on that as I do on my front door. When I bought the house it had a good heavy dead bolt on the door. You would think that would be good, but right beside it is a glass. It would be easy to just break the glass and reach in and turn the deadbolt. The back door has the glass in the same place, but no deadbolt. So which do you thing is safer ?
And when you do that, you've just made whatever that "good ground" is a current carrying conductor. It will share the neutral current with the existing neutral for the stove receptacle. And that is a code violation.
n also sold me a three prong power cord. I didn't think too much of it, unt il reading some of these posts. The house was built in 1987, and currently has a three prong outlet connected to a 40 amp breaker. Would it be safe to say that I need an electrician to come in and rewire the range outlet? The new range is already in place, but if ranges of today differ from ranges o f days gone by...I'd like to know. This is my first house and I would reall y like to make sure it's safe.
I know that some may think that this is a ridiculous question, but one neve r really knows.
Is is safe to assume that you are replacing an *electric* range with a
*electric* range?
I ask because it is possible that the previous owner switched to gas but left the original receptacle and breaker in place, simply changing the cord on the gas range. Yes, a terrible hack, but we've seen worse.
I'm just making sure that we have all of the required information.
Yep, when I redid our entire kitchen I discovered that the stove was hard-wired, I went and bought the box, socket and cord, so it could be plugged in and installed it. Simple swap as I had four wires in the cable. Wasn't necessary but easy to do when the wall was down anyway.
Having bought a few gas ranges, they all came with a cord attached for
110V. Having bought or installed electric appliances, NONE of the 220V came with cords except AC units. 40A three prong is typical in tens of thousands of houses using electric ranges.
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