I just moved into a new apartment and the room all of my musical and recording equipment has to go in has no ground... at all.
The building is something like 75 years old so I went around with a circuit tester and checked all of the outlets. In some rooms where their are 3 prong outlets the ground is not connected to anything and in some rooms all checks out fine. In the music room I had a 2 prong outlet and requested that the landlord replace it with a 3 prong outlet and that it be properly grounded to the panel. He just wired a 3 prong outlet and left the ground unconnected.
When I asked if he could get an electrician in to actually run a wire to ground he pretty much refused.

Questions:

1. I have heard that grounding the outlet to the housing doesn't do any real good and will cause surge protectors to basically not throw if their is a spike.
Is their any easy way for me to ground this outlet myself?

2. Roughly how much would having this outlet grounded cost me if I were to have an electrician come do it for me.

Until the ground issue is solved my amp, organ, console, tape machine, and computer are just gathering dust.


Thanks,

Jap

I'm sure you know this already, but that's not safe. Is it legal in the US? I know the standards around mains are more slack, but this is pretty ridiculous.

I don't know the legality, but I'd be suspicious or the landlord in other areas as well.

I'd send reminders with every rent check about electrical concerns. See if you could find some literature saying surge protectors are not effective with ungrounded plug. Maybe check in with some renters insurance people, get quotes for renters insurance with and without grounded electrical in the house and then ask if the landlord would be interested in paying the difference.

As for grounding it yourself, I'm sure it's not incredibly hard, but I think it's also probably not legal for you to do it in the building you don't own without permission AND not being licensed.

Perhaps you could call up and get a quote from an electrician, then contact your landlord and offer to split the cost?

Ben

Rodabod wrote:I'm sure you know this already, but that's not safe. Is it legal in the US? I know the standards around mains are more slack, but this is pretty ridiculous.

Yeah, it is ridiculous.

From what I have gathered, any new construction since 1977 has to have fully grounded AC at all outlets but their is now law in place saying owners have to update old ungrounded outlets that were in place before 1977.

My new landlord mumbled something about having the outlets in the living room and bedroom bumped up to 15 amps so we could have window AC units and basically made it clear he wasn't going to do anything about anything else. I have renters insurance an am pretty sure it will not cover anything electronic that is plugged into an unproperly grounded receptacle.

Their is a Grounded outlet directly below the closet in the music room and I thought about drilling a hole in the closet floor and running a line from there. I'm sure he would love that.

If anyone knows more about the legalities of these power issues and has any info I could use as leverage it would be much appreciated.


Thanks,

Jap

Can't you just build an outlet box and ground it? You could move it, and re-ground as necessary.

And don't bust your landlord's balls over something like this. You gotta bust his balls when you have no heat, or water, or etc...

ubercat wrote:Can't you just build an outlet box and ground it? You could move it, and re-ground as necessary.

And don't bust your landlord's balls over something like this. You gotta bust his balls when you have no heat, or water, or etc...

I agree.

It's common to find these grounding problems in older homes. I've lived in several where variations of this existed. What I've done in the past is installed my own outlets and run either a star ground to a large copper pole I bought at home depot and hammered 6 feet into the ground (literally) or if that's not an option then tie the ground of the outlet to the nearest piece of metal plumbing which hopefully accomplishes the same thing.

I know it's not legal and I know it should be taken care of by the landlord but I've found most landlord's uncooperative when it comes to solving my pro-audio grounding issues.

Read up on it. There's plenty of info out there. Be careful when working with mains voltages. But I've read lots of your posts and you can do this yourself if you can't get the landlord to give in.

Good luck

Don't forget to pee on your star ground pole every week or so once it's in the ground. Pee's got electrolytes. It's what star grounds crave.

otisroom wrote:Don't forget to pee on your star ground pole every week or so once it's in the ground. Pee's got electrolytes. It's what star grounds crave.

HA!

otisroom wrote: tie the ground of the outlet to the nearest piece of metal plumbing which hopefully accomplishes the same thing.

Thanks for the help guys, I can create any kind of audio adapter cable you could dream up but I am mostly terrified of high dose electricity.

I just found a little clamp from Home Depot that is designed exactly for this.

I am actually going to try to tie it to ground at the Panel in the basement or just to one of the big fucking pipes down there. I'll try to hide it like a ninja so I don't have to explain anything to the overlord.

japmn wrote:I just found a little clamp from Home Depot that is designed exactly for this.

I am actually going to try to tie it to ground at the Panel in the basement or just to one of the big fucking pipes down there. I'll try to hide it like a ninja so I don't have to explain anything to the overlord.

Cool. Just make sure you use a high gauge cable and get a solid clamp. Remember, while the ground is good for noise, it's main concern is safety, so that a faulty device will send oveloaded power to ground, no through you or the chassis of a device. A thin ground wire will just act like a fuse in a major failure. Once that goes, your body is next

Ben