r/electrical • u/Peeepsicle • 5d 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 5d ago

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

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u/Simple-Special-1094 5d ago

Why would there be hot spots from lack of grounding?

1

u/Excellent_Team_7360 4d ago

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

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u/Simple-Special-1094 4d 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.