Additionally, without any ground wire to pull the housings of devices to ground, the potential for a short to energize the case and then electrocute you is also high.
this will also cause resets and instability. have seen it first hand.
Comment on Electricians of fediverse, should I have my selfhosting box grounded?
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
It will not affect system stability, but… Surge protectors do not work at all without a ground wire to drop excess voltage to. Any kind of line voltage disturbance could kill every device.
If your house is entirely ungrounded you really should have an electrician come update it ASAP. Outlet grounds have been mandatory since 1971. The chances are high that wiring predating that code is still using old cloth-wrapped wire insulation or even knob&tube, both of which are huge fire risks as the insulation is decayed badly by now. It’s expensive to have all new wire pulled but it is necessary.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Revan343@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Reminds me of a story about magic
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 4 months ago
that’s funny af
in personal experience, I’ve seen ungrounded equipment ground itself through people. not a pleasant experience but fortunately no cooked colleagues - but not fun at all.
aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
Surge suppressors do not drop extra voltage to ground. They selectively short out surges between whatever two conductors have a high potential between them.
No ground conductor means there cannot be a high potential between it and anything else!
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 months ago
Yeah it’s pricey, very pricey, but the risks are just too high for a home not to be properly grounded anymore. Homeowners have had 50 years to do it, it’s time to get it done.
tburkhol@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Heh. House I rented was built before ubiquitous electricity. At some point, someone slapped a fuse box on the outside of the back wall and drilled a bunch of 1" holes in said wall to pass wiring. House was built on piers, so they just dragged wires around to places where they wanted outlets, which were mostly planted in the floor. Not a ground wire on site. I have no idea how they got away with renting that out, but it’s not like I called code enforcement, either.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Generally speaking most buildings can be “grandfathered in” under code such that it’s perfectly legal to rent as long as the electrical system functions and meets code for the year on which it was built or installed… shitty, but legal.
verstra@programming.dev 4 months ago
My house was built in 1939. Initial installation of ecectric cables consisted of a wire in a sleeve filled over with concrete. That was all replaced with proper tubing and isolation, but these few outlets do not have ground.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Absolutely. Don’t fuck with electrical.