Outstanding Changing 2 Prong Outlet To Three
There are other ways your electrician can upgrade your outlets without rewiring.
Changing 2 prong outlet to three. Ensure first that you have armored cable with a metal strip inside the armored cable this was done to improve its grounding capability. If you replace your ungrounded two prong outlet with a gfci you must label it with no equipment ground. This is the safest options and requires running a ground wire from the main electrical panel to the specific outlet.
For example ungrounded three prong outlets can be installed. The third option to upgrade a two prong outlet is to replace it with a gfci. If you re going from a 2 prong to a 3 prong outlet and your home has in fact been grounded but there is no ground wire at the outlet you will also need to run a wire from the green ground screw to the back of the metal outlet box for grounding the outlet.
Install a gfci at the outlet. If all your outlets are two prong than you can easily assume that the building has not been grounded but if you have a few three prongs in the mix say behind your fridge then your building s wiring may be grounded but your landlord hasn t put in the time and money to convert all the outlets to grounded three prongs. Yet it is possible to retrofit a new three prong or gfci receptacle into the same outlet box without any rewiring as long as the box itself is grounded.
If the box is grounded you can install a three prong outlet and ground it by attaching it to the armored or bx cable in the back of the box. Any tool or appliance that came with a two prong plug was designed to not need a ground usually by double insulating it putting t. While a gfci will not protect your electronics from power surges it will protect you from electrocution and short circuits.
Although this option offers the safest solution for three prong outlet access it may not be the most feasible one. However there are risks involved with using non grounded three prong outlets. If your home has multiple two prong outlets 2 upgrade options include.
Adding in a ground wire to upgrade to a 3 prong outlet. Adding a ground wire must be done by a professional and each two prong outlet needs to be updated separately. If you are unsure of how to run a new.