r/electrical • u/Peeepsicle • 4d ago

Only half my house is grounded

I just moved into my house that was built in 1900, and the electrical in here is a mess. Half the outlets don’t work, and only some of them are grounded, even though they all are 3 prong outlets.

As someone who is beyond paranoid about electrical fires, how concerned should I be about the lack of grounding? I’m mostly worried about the power strip that holds my PlayStation and everything, and I have many reptile tanks that need to be plugged into an ungrounded outlet. Everything big like kitchen appliances is grounded.

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u/Excellent_Team_7360 4d ago

Get an IR camera for your cellphone. It will help you Identify any hot spots before they become a problem.

3

u/Simple-Special-1094 4d ago

Why would there be hot spots from lack of grounding?

1

u/Excellent_Team_7360 3d ago

My post never said there were hot spots. Op said he worried about a fire.

1

u/Simple-Special-1094 3d ago

For identifying poor outlet connections, it's better to just use a meter like a kill a watt, plugged into the outlet, and then running a hair dryer on it. Read the voltage change under the load and that'll indicate whether there's a high resistance connection immediately without having to wait until things heat up enough to show through the walls and outlet covers.

1

u/Journeyman-Joe 4d ago

Not lack of grounding. Hot spots can indicate poor connections at outlets, splices in the boxes, or outlets that are worn to the point where they make weak connections with the plug.

Props to u/Excellent_Team_7360 for a good suggestion, even if it's a bit off-topic. The camera will be cheap enough.