Electrical Ground Wire Connection Guide

It is important that you know about ground wiring so that you are able to connect it properly. Ground wires help to protect you from electrical shock, but when it comes to electricity, you will need to have experience and know-how if you want to be able to successfully and safely connect it. There are several different things that you can connect to ground wire and several different ways that you can go about doing it. Just be sure that with each and every project and step that you always use caution and follow instructions carefully to keep yourself safe and productive.

Techniques

There are several different techniques when it comes to electrical grounding. One of the most basic is called a pigtail connection. To do this, you will take a wire that has been stripped at both ends and connect it to the ground wires. Then, use a wire connector to hold them together. You may find yourself needing to use an equipment bonding jumper, which will be necessary whenever there is a grounding terminal that needs to be connected to a receptacle with a grounded box. If there are multiple equipment grounding conductors that all go into a junction box, then they will need to be bonded. Do this by attaching the grounding conductors from every one of the devices into the box with a grounding screw.

Light Fixtures

If you need to set up ground wires in light fixtures, do it, as it will ultimately make your fixtures much safer. In order to do this, you will begin by finding the ground screw that is going to be found either on the mounting bracket or on the actual light fixture. Once you have found it, you will take the ground wire that will be coming from the electrical box in your home. Get needle-nose pliers and twist the very tip of the wire to make a hook. Use this hook to go around the ground screw and then tighten the screw.

Electrical Outlets

Should you ever need to ground electrical outlets that have no grounding wire, don't worry—it is possible. You will need to begin by completely shutting off the circuit breaker to that outlet. From there, take out the old receptacle, and look for a wire that is dark in color that is connected to the brass terminal. That is the hot wire. Then, take out all of the old receptacle’s wires and get them ready for the new one.

Twist the strands of each bare wire together with your fingers. The wires to the GFCI terminals need to be connected, and the exposed end of the hot wire will need to be wrapped around the brass terminal. The neutral wire needs to be connected to the silver terminal. Once you have done this, you can put the GFCI outlet into the box and close it up. After this is done and labeled as grounded wire, you can turn the power back on. Be sure to press the reset button.