Connecting green ground to neutral

I have been working on an older house (originally wired with just two prong outlets - no ground), and have discovered a few three prong (grounded) outlets installed in the kitchen and bathrooms. I checked them with a plug-in tester and they tested out OK, but when I looked in the box, I discovered that there was no separate ground wire installed, and instead, there was just a short jumper wire from the green ground screw to the neutral screw on the receptacle. Presumably, the tester thinks its a grounded outlet as the neutral and grounds are connected together in the circuit breaker panel. Is this arrangement permitted by the electrical code, by any chance?

 

<marquee>no</marquee>

it do not allow per code at all.

the other way is do is rewire it or mark the outlets " no grounding wire "

there is not much choice here, i am sure few other sparky will say the same thing too

merci , marc

 

VERY dangerous! Some absolute moron did that,, and thats not an opinion, its a fact. disconnect them imediatly. You can protect those circuits with a gfci.

 

Beave, What you have discovered is an extremely dangerous situation. You need to immediately check all outlets for this condition and remove these jumpers. Never ever jump from the equipment grounding screw to the white grounded conductor. This most certainly is a code violation of the nth degree. This is a common practice by homeowners to fool inspectors testers prior to a home sale. By jumping to a current carrying white wire( aka neutral or grounded condutor) you have just energized every metal object plugged into these outlets. These people who do this know not what they do. By doing this you have given the current returning to ground on the white wire another path to take, through this jumper right to any appliance with a 3 prong connector. It will travel right up the grounding wire to the metal case of the appliance and sit there waiting for the right conditions to allow it to go to ground. This could be your wife or you touching the metal case of your kitchen aid mixer with one hand and the sink with the other making a perfect path to ground and you can guess the rest. This becomes even more hazardous if the white wire in the circuit should come apart. Now the jumper has allowed the electricity that was trying to go to earth ground through the white wire and stay inside the walls, as it should, to travel the jumper out to your refrigerator, mixer, toaster, blender etc. Creating an electrocution condition. This condition is also refered to as neutral loading. This is much more dangerous than touching a hot black wire. This condition will sit there waiting, possibly for years, as long as these jumpers are in place for the right condition to occur, then bang!! The green screw that this jumper is attached to is the equipment grounding screw. In the house you are working on you do not have equipment ground. This is why you have ungrounded outlets with only 2 slots. Someone thought they were being resourceful by putting in 3 prong grounded outlets. This approach would have been less dangerous had it not been for the jumpers. HOWEVER the jumpers will fool the inspectors tester into thinking there is an equipment ground when in fact there isnt. It does this by using the white current carrying conductor as a phony equipment ground. The equipment grounding wire, usually bare copper or green insulated wire, is never meant to carry current except when an electrical fault occurs such as electrical short, lightning, etc. It is an independent path to ground meant to protect life and limb. You do not have this wire in your situation. Most good inspectors will never fall for this jumper trick and if they find this will not be happy about it. Now dont despair there is a way to proceed that is acceptable and follows code. Nec allows 4 things.... 1.) you can replace 2 prong oulets with like 2 prong outlets. 2.) You can replace 2 prong outlets with 3 prong GFCI outlets protecting each individually. 3.) You can place one 3 prong gfci outlet in the circuit first in line and then replace all 2 prong outlets upstream with regular 3 prong grounded outlets labeling each regular 3 prong outlet "GFCI protected no equipment ground". 4.) Install a unbroken independent equipment grounding wire where one doesnt exist. Hope this helps and get rid of those jumpers ASAP!!!.....RL

 

These outlets should be replaced with either a GFCI outlet marked "No equipment ground" or with a two prong outlet, depending on their location. The ones you mention in the bathroom and the kitchen should be a GFCI.

 

Thanks for all the great info guys. You confirmed my suspicions. This house has some nightmarish amateur wiring. I even encountered a black and green wire connected together (via wire nut) in a ceiling fan! It's been very bizzare. I'm amazed the house hasn't burned down yet, or someone electrocuted.

I have already replaced the miswired 3 prong outlets in the bathrooms with GFCI outlets, and am planning to supply a separate ground conductor for each going back to the main panel in order to provide true, grounded GFCI bath outlets. The kitchen outlets are next on my agenda. Funny thing is that I tell the homeowner (a personal friend) about all these hidden, horrible wiring problems I discover, and he gets a little peeved that I plan to spend the time and money to fix them. He's basically an "electrical moron" and has a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. Overall, I'd rather do the right thing and endure his grumpiness, though. Thanks again!