Ground Wire Installation in San Diego
All homes must have proper grounding. In the event of a short-circuit or other electrical malfunction, the current needs a path out of your home and into the ground. Your outlets (GFCIs) and other systems need a ground wire that runs to a ground rod, which sticks into the earth.
Proper grounding is one of the most basic components of a safe home with functioning and disaster-ready electricity. To get your grounding done once and done correctly, you need to work with a licensed and experienced electrician. Look no farther than Premo Electric, San Diego’s top-rated electricians.
To get your ground-wiring installed properly, call Premo Electric at 619-908-1286 or complete our online request form. Or you can read on to find out more about ground wires and their installation.
What is grounding?
Electricity has both a positive and negative current. The negative current is called the “hot” current. It flows through black wires throughout your home. The neutral, or positive, current, flows through the white wires.
When there is excess hot current it can flow through the neutral wires to return to the ground, thus expelling it safely. But sometimes that white neutral wire gets damaged. When this happens, you don’t want all that hot current flowing into your home instead. If it does you’ve got a fire hazard on your hands.
Grounding wires provide that current with an alternate pathway back to the ground by running bare copper wires parallel to the existing conducting wires.
How do I know if I need a ground wire?
The third receptacle on your outlets (the one that looks like a little mouth) creates a connection between your appliances or fixtures and the grounding wires. But you won’t find those in older homes.
Older homes still run on two-prong outlets, which don’t have grounding wires at all. Many people try to deal with these with plug adapters, but that’s not safe. Those let you plug in your appliances but don’t in fact provide any grounding protection.
You need a grounding wire, and you need 3-prong replacements for all those outlets. In some cases you may need a panel upgrade to bring your home up to code.
Are ground wires the same as GFCIs?
No. A GFCI is a type of outlet. It shuts off electrical power when it finds an imbalance between outgoing current and incoming current. It’s designed to protect you from an electric shock.
These sorts of outlets need to be installed anywhere that it might get wet, such as your fridge or bathroom.
A current inbalance like this can be the result of either a short circuit or wire damage. Equipment malfunctions can cause them, too. Technically we can use them in other rooms to replace two-prong circuits without a grounding wire, though we recommend placing grounding wires in addition. It’s important to label these as “No Equipment Ground” if you take this option.
Get your home up-to-code
Homes that aren’t code-compliant are dangerous. Don’t wait until a disaster or an emergency to call us out to take care of the problem. Let us help you install proper grounding into your home so you can avoid fire and shock hazards.
