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Receptacles No Ground Big Mistake

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Mexican receptacles (plug ins) do not utilize an earth ground. Pull the receptacle and find nothing connected to the green screw.

Any electronic device having a plug with three prongs or any metal appliance that has a 3-prong plug demands a receptacle with a functional ground connection.


Why?

Because 100% of the electronic protection devices inside your laptop brick, television, or other expensive device rely on dumping bad electricity directly to earth ground. If it has no connection your electronic device takes a beating. Hello smoke and playing possum.

Metal appliances can "leak" dangerous amounts of current to the appliance body a steel or aluminum body. And with bare feet on a concrete floor a "leaking" appliance will kill you. Washing machines are especially vulnerable to leakage and danger.

People with weak hearts, heart problems or pacemakers are especially vulnerable.


Most concrete houses are made of concrete or cinder block. And wiring in ground wires from the service drop is either a) incredibly expensive b) impossible.

But there is a cheater's way to ground an outlet.

It is not easy to do. Banish the thought. It requires purchasing green wire, ring terminals, a masonry drill and special screws.

Power to the receptacle under modification must be cut. So a long extension cord and portable work light is essential.

The concrete house and foundation is a ground, a damned good one as you know if you have been jolted by touching a leaking appliance.

The receptacle must be removed from the box. Clear the wires away from a drill bit.

Drill the concrete as straight as you can with a hammer drill. The depth should be 2"

A suitable length of green 16 gauge wire (6" is more than enough) needs a NUMBER TEN blue insulated ring terminal crimped to the stripped green wire. Screw the ring terminal with wire to the concrete using a phillips head # 2 screwdriver.

Do not go nuts tightening the concrete screw. Most cinder block is weak so just to the point of beginning to be snug is plenty tight enough.

Wrap a stripped end of the green wire around the ground screw of the receptacle. Tighten the receptacle screw good and tight.

Screw the receptacle to the box in the wall.

Test the outlet with an inexpensive plug in tester available at the hardware store. The "missing ground" error light will be extinguished.

Bathroom receptacles and metal body appliance receptacles should be grounded.

In dry areas where rain is scarce, soak the edge of the house foundation with a hose then lead a trail of soggy earth out for perhaps twenty feet. This is a good enough bond. Every few months.

All this is definitely NOT TO CODE in the USA but you are definitely not in the USA and what I outlined above has been done by me more than a hundred times and not one fault has appeared. The 16 gauge wire? I have passed TWENTY AMPS direct ground fault through a 16 gauge wire for many minutes. The wire is short so it can take a lot of current.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Qty-3-16-x-1-1-4-Flat-Head-Phillips-Diamond-Tip-Concrete-Screws-To-Anch...

And all along you blamed high or low or dirty power for expensive failures. Look inside at the circuitry some time and wince when you see all the MOVS and voltage protection devices connected between "hot" and "ground". That went nowhere and did nothing.
17 REPLIES 17

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
A phase/neutral connection does absolutely zero to allow circuit protection devices to work. An inexpensive 1 MHz oscilloscope will verify just how dirty some line voltages are down here -- many are so bad they chew the life out of cheap surge protectors within a year and suck the life out of hundred dollar specialty computer protector boxes. How many Tripp Lite devices have I tossed because "The little "working" LED switched from Green To Red? I finally got fed up, kept the destroyed power strips, then jammed in as many much physically larger MOVs plus TVS diodes as possible then recycled the product into use. Every single discrete device has it's own rice grain 2.5 amp fuse. One time fault. But a working chassis to earth must be present or this is so much trash.

Some circuits are so dirty that I would not waste my improved circuit protection on them. I purchased an entire pallet, sealed with wrap from HSC Electronics in Rohnert Park CA, in 2003. Forty-eight 850 va isolation transformers. This is the finest most effective transient voltage spike eliminator known.

But isolation transformer do zero to protect against constant high voltage. There are voltage correction devices available that do that HOWEVER every last one of them utilize autotransformer design that does absolutely nothing to isolate voltage spikes and transients. So for optimum protection an auto transformer in circuit followed by a true isolation transformer delivers true protection. The downside is a 5 Kw isolation transformer would cost many hundreds of dollars and the price tag for a 50 amp 240 transformer would have a comma in it. Thankfully RV do not rely on line voltage for most of their tasks. However, voltage management protectors get punished as does anything downstream because they all use autotransformer design.

Also thankfully many service drops in Mexico are quiet but large RV Park circuits are horrible. I dragged my isolation transformer and 4 channel Tektronix oscilloscope to a number of RV parks where multiple rig air conditioners were operating. The electronic spikes were disheartening.

Sizing MOVs and TVS and gas discharge tube protection devices has to be done with relation to peak-to-peak voltages on the CFE standard line voltage rating of 127 - 254 volts. The high capacity MOVs I use are about the size of a nickel. Almost all consumer produces use MOVs half that size. I chose 1500 watt avalanche diodes instead of 500 or 700 watt models and then I piled on the number in parallel. Gas tube discharge devices are pricey and I even parallel those. Line to earth ground then line to neutral. They all are bi-directional.

Microwave ovens happen to be the no 1 appliance that stops operating first down here. The control board ICs burn out from transient voltages. Anything that plugs into a wall socket then has the power cord run inside the appliance without benefit of a power brick is vulnerable. SMART portable battery chargers are lucky to survive twenty uses before they go dark forever.

I've been at this for more than twenty years so this isn't guesswork. My trash bins have loads of diagnosed failed circuit boards.

Huge power loads such as a three phase hundred horsepower 600 volt motor in a refrigerated ice plant are death to that entire distribution line, sometimes hundreds of homes. All the way back to the line transmission to the distribution transformer sub station. It's when the refrigeration compressor shuts off is when the line voltage goes insane with spikes for several milliseconds.

I am stuck between power generation source and a refrigeration plant 30 Km to the north. My kitchen kept blowing appliances until I got sick of it. Then I went on the warpath. I have a five thousand dollar SOLA military grade line conditioner than can turn 70 to 160 volt incoming power to 120 volt outgoing product. Even NOS meaning surplus new unused the 200 pound sea chest size beige box cost me 500 dollars and the worst part is it eats almost 70 watts of power idling.

I have a 24 cubic foot Viking refrigerator and a 1825 watt commercial inverter microwave to protect. As well as electronics -- lots of instruments, I could use a PSW inverter to transduce dirty power but it would cost thousands of dollars.

But all that you have read above would not be worth one cent if I did not have receptacles connected to earth ground. And I am not going to wrestle a jammed full appliance out of the way to change a failed GCFI. That's so absurd as to make we sad.

Take this for what it's worth, the USA uses INDIVIDUAL service drop transformers while Mexico does not. My protected appliances and devices now have a normal service life as do the appliances in homes that I have rectified. My neighbors are poor -- they cannot afford to barely pay for circuit protection devices never mind the labor to install them and the grounding of the appliance receptacle.

The easiest thing to do is to dismiss all this and ignore it. Keep your hand on your wallet and take the expense in stride.

theoldwizard1
Explorer
Explorer
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Not completely accurate. Many devices DO "demand" it (will not run) but many other device (home computers, refrigerators, etc.) don't care.

I can say that I have come across this EXCEPT on modern furnaces !

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
As for me, the fellow with a pacemaker. I will smack someone over the head with a two by four if I get jolted touching an ungrounded appliance. GFI may be fine for two wire cords but I demand absolute 100% guarantee of safety by grounding a metal body appliance.

I always get a chuckle out of 3 wire cords on things WITHOUT a metal body (laptop power "brick") !

I can not PROVE this (at least to your satisfaction) but a GFCI works by comparing the amount of current flowing INTO the device on the "hot" wire to the amount of current flowing OUT OF the device on the neutral. If there is a difference (human providing a path from hot to ground) in these power flows, it trips.

A GFCI is not "nirvana". My son has an older washing machine that would trip the GFCI occasionally in the middle of a wash cycle. We just replaced it with an old fashioned 3 prong plug.


Segue - Many, MANY years ago some computing equipment used 3 phases. Most of the time the phase were split apart inside the cabinet via a power distribution panel (a power strip on steroids). We had new equipment installed and the union electrician ran seal-tite flexible conduit from the breaker panel to a L21-20 plug in a pendant box. The equipment would NOT POWER UP until he added the ground wire which he insisted was "not required" !

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Not completely accurate. Many devices DO "demand" it (will not run) but many other device (home computers, refrigerators, etc.) don't care. The ground is just connected to the chassis and there is no "sensing" that the ground is NOT connected.

Not utilizing the path for MOV and OPD avalanche protection is like taking the shock absorbers off your vehicle and expecting the springs to live a long time.

ESPECIALLY down here.

I am the poor fool who tries to help neighbors by trying to fix their blown electronics. I have about a 5% success rate because voltage spikes blow proprietary integrated circuits. Want 30% useful service life? Operate three wire elecTRONIC devices without an earth ground down here.

OPEN (yes you, the doubters) -- actually OPEN a 3-wire power supply and LOOK at how the MOVs and avalanche protectors are connected in circuit.

As for me, the fellow with a pacemaker. I will smack someone over the head with a two by four if I get jolted touching an ungrounded appliance. GFI may be fine for two wire cords but I demand absolute 100% guarantee of safety by grounding a metal body appliance. I have a GE refrigerator that is a 2-wire in this rental. I measured 33 volts refrigerator to floor tile difference because of non grounded feet.

Guess what, the chassis is now bonded to the floor. A voltage detector alerted me to the fault. And WHAT exactly do you think happens with a metal appliance when hot and neutral are reversed? About as common down here as fudging a red light.

Ground elecTRONICS that have a third wire. And I have seen Chinese GCFI's down here that do not work right. In the store if you do not not see a UL, ETL, or NOM approval stamp on a GCFI don't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Reliance on ASSSSSSSSSSumed protection is about as nutso as thinking red photons from a crosswalk red light makes crossing a highway as safe as using a pedestrian overpass. Yeah those red photons will stop a car or truck. Right.

And those blown metal oxide varistors and TVS discretes I see in older electronic devices committed suicide. Power faults didn't do it.

In 2014 I purchased a thousand 20mm MOVS and a thousand 185 volt TVS bi-directional avalanche diodes online. The largest capacity units I could find. One of my inline suppressors uses at least six of each, three to earth ground the other three to neutral. And they all have rice grain fuses. Sorry, I don't like needlessly buying burned out electronics or explaining why my repair lasted no longer than the original.

Bring a storage oscilloscope down here and get nauseated monitoring line voltage.

theoldwizard1
Explorer
Explorer
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:

Because 100% of the electronic protection devices inside your laptop brick, television, or other expensive device rely on dumping bad electricity directly to earth ground.

Most televisions have a 2 wire power cord.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Metal appliances can "leak" dangerous amounts of current to the appliance body a steel or aluminum body. And with bare feet on a concrete floor a "leaking" appliance will kill you. Washing machines are especially vulnerable to leakage and danger.

This is very true. Without a chassis ground that will return high current power to the breaker box, the breaker will not trip. For example, if a bad power wire to an appliance short the hot to the chassis and the chassis is not ground, you could die !

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
there is a cheater's way to ground an outlet.

YES, install a GFCI. You still have no ground, but you are protected. GFCI prevent this because they compare the power going in no the hot wire to the power going out on the neutral. If they are not the same, the GFCI trips.

This is COMPLETELY LEGAL in the US, just put the include sticker on the outlet saying it is not grounded. BTDTGTT !

theoldwizard1
Explorer
Explorer
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Mexican receptacles (plug ins) do not utilize an earth ground. Pull the receptacle and find nothing connected to the green screw.

Any electronic device having a plug with three prongs or any metal appliance that has a 3-prong plug demands a receptacle with a functional ground connection.

Not completely accurate. Many devices DO "demand" it (will not run) but many other device (home computers, refrigerators, etc.) don't care. The ground is just connected to the chassis and there is no "sensing" that the ground is NOT connected.

One odd things that burns a lot of people is modern furnaces. Not only does the ground have to be connected, but it has to be "bonded" to the neutral (this happens inside the main breaker box). If you are temporarily rigging a plug to a furnace so that you can run it from a generator it will not work unless the ground and neutral are bonded, which on many generators they are not. You can make a temporary bond by taking a plug and looping a wire from ground to neutral.

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Plastic pipe for electrical is gray it has a flare on one end that acts as a coupling. There are pull ells for tight 90 degree corners and gentle sweeps for regular 90 degree use. "Tees" and couplings. Pull your wire through as you are making tubing connections. Don't try and fish wire through completed piping.

Use scrap 2x4 as platform cross piers and saddle brackets and short nails to keep the tubing from twisting.

While you're doing all that you need to slip connection collars over the 14 AWG green wire. You need to tap into the green wire where the Tees rise to place the spur ground wires up through the floor.

Wrap scotch tape around these electrical fittings so they don't wander up and down the tubing.

Clear so far?

https://www.delcity.net/catalogdetails?item=214505

Now to tap those spur wires into the long long green wire.

Utility knife with new sharp blade and extra blades.

Cut a circumference around the green main wire then do it again an inch distant. Then slit between the two and remove the peel. A nice inch of bare copper wire for you. Strip an inch of insulation off the end of the spur wire.

The electrical collar fits over the bare wire and then the spur wire slips into the collar 2 bugs in a bed. OK?

I use a thick metal plate and a ball pien hammer to flatten the snot out of the collar. Just don't yank on the spur wire until the copper collar has really seized it good and tight. Next, wrap it with electrical tape. Slide the plastic tee with the spur wire (the spur wire length has to reach all the way up to where the duplex socket is. Join the assembly. Then go to the next victim. Doing it this way really pays dividends.

But the garage needs another connection to the service drop.

Except for the copper parallel collars, Home Depot has everything you need. The half inch diameter plastic pipe is ridiculously easy to run a single 14 gauge wire through.

Note do your drilling first so you can dangle your spur wires and it's a lot easier to plan the route of the pipe and ground wire.

Talleyho69
Moderator
Moderator
Vehicles rusted in front of our very eyes where we lived/live, and it's all as above.

We were trying to keep the wire colors correct. Went to the store and bought wire, all fine. Needed more, told them specifically what we needed, and they came back and said, "sorry, we are out of the white, so we gave you red."

Yes, we updated our household map, and love living here.

Then, when we were installing our ceiling fans, all the wires were blue. Only those in the ceiling, and we had to chase them all down.

One more ceiling fan to install, all new wiring. Should we use all blue?

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Is there a reason you cannot just run the green wire on the surface of the underfoundation and then tie it to the service drop ground? I'm trying to get a picture of what you are facing ๐Ÿ™‚

Ava
Explorer
Explorer
I helped a friend with their electrical problems in their home in Mexico and found all the wires were the same colour. That was fun trying to trace any wires.

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
It depends on a warm sea, not sixty degree, try eighty, and very warm air that holds lots more moisture. Large waves. You would not leave your window open in this kind of environment. Everything turns greasy feeling after a day. My war of the roses occurred on the patio where I fogged down the plants and cotton hammocks morning and night. The type of atmosphere I am talking about eats football size holes on vehicles after a few years. Elevation plays a crucial role in how far salt travels and even that isn't as influential as the intensity of a steady predictable breeze. I pay dearly for my comfort. By 2PM in the summer the humidity and no breeze factor in Zihuatanejo chases us to the markets to shop.

Talleyho69
Moderator
Moderator
We SO hope you get a great response!

The house we just left in California we lived in for 38 years. It was beachfront and was built in 1927, right on the sand. When we moved in it had one fuse. We upgraded to two, and never blew any. We immediately grounded the house and did fine.

Yes, RV and Mexican places, and even older places in the US and Canada aren't up to "code."

Any suggestions to make his place safer and better?

path1
Explorer
Explorer
(not stealing post, still deals with grounding, House in PNW not in Mexico, wish it was some times:))

So how much trouble can I get into... Built in 1956. I'm not a electrician by any means, but have messed with changing sockets, hooking up microwave etc. My elec is a mess. I'll try to describe it.


House orginally built with 2 wire and unknown size of elec panel. Knob and tube that is left is about 15 feet from orginall construction. But in good condition meaning all the stuff is on them and no bare wires. Then somebody added a laundry room and carport at unknown date. That wiring is also 2 wire. Then in mid 70's airport was supposed to buy entire neighborhood out. But couple years later the courts said it is OK for airport to cheap out and come in install double pane windows and tons of insulation and upgrade elec. The "upgraded" elec was a 200 amp Cutler-Hammer panel. (Only about 1/2 the slots getting used) And the panel was grounded with copper rod sunk into the ground. OK panel now grounded or atleast somebody signed off on it... BUT all wiring from panel throught the house is still 2 wire, so not grounded.


Here is my brain storm... Ground the duplex sockets by drilling long harbor freight drill bits into the ground and connect grounding wire from socket to drill bits. I have crawl space under house with enough room to drill with long bit and can also add onto the bit. Then a hole under each socket just big enough to get a right angle drill in and drill a hole through 2X4 and put a wire thru connecting the wire from the socket to "Harbor Freight Grounding Rod".
Then I'll have a grounded socket (I think) verified by cheap color coded tester.
Is there a more trust worthly way to test with a volt meter verses color coded socket tester? (Have Fluke 77)

What do you think? Crazy or good idea?

Thanks
2003 Majestic 23P... Northwest travel machine
2013 Arctic Fox 25W... Wife "doll house" for longer snowbird trips
2001 "The Mighty Dodge"... tow vehicle for "doll house"

Talleyho69
Moderator
Moderator
Our home was owned by Mexicans for 10 years, Americans for 7 then vacant for 6.
We are very close to the ocean.

Don't know about GFI's in houses, but our RV lived 6 months a year ON the beach in Mexico, and 6 months a year ON the beach in California, both well within your 200 meter range of crashing open ocean waves. We never had a GFI problem.

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
In humid sea coast areas a GFIC lasts about 2 months, it's ALL ABOUT surface leakage from moist sea air. Tropical seacoast areas are not mid-America. Near an open for ventilation window a ground fault receptacle needs cleaning every second day or it will fault on it's own. Not conjecture -- from repeated experience over the period of decades. The receptacle finally faults internally when a salt bridge is made. I wish it did not do this.

Tallyho 69 - was an American or Canadian a prior occupant of your dwelling?

In 1997 I toured the five thousand dollar a night presidential suite at the Gran Bay Hotel in Barra de Navidad. It was under construction and the receptacles had two 14 gauge red and black wires.

Credit becomes due when a receptacle cover is pulled and three wires are found. Easier, is to use a 3-wire receptacle tester and have the NO GROUND alert stare back at you.

This serves as a what-to-to-to correct a problem not a criticism. Criticism does not come complete with a solution. Solution means bringing buckets of wire nuts and cans of silicone grease to help local electricians do a job faster and better. Oh wait a minute I forgot to mention the FREE part. Homes more than 200 meters distant from crashing waves and offshore breezes have less problems with salt air. I have seen copper plated ground rods that have been corroded in two. Some by circuit faults that caused electrolysis.

Talleyho69
Moderator
Moderator
Our house, built in 1995 and 2005 is three wire with ground, all connected. Mexico is modernizing.

In the Mexican RV parks we stayed in, many were three wire with ground installed, who knows who did it, and we did the installation on a number of them ourselves.