re a question about vac outlet wiring in article qids innebl chnews intel com crichmon sedona intel com chris richmond writes in article apr mprgate mpr ca vanderby mprgate mpr ca david vanderbyl writes in article apr ecsvax uncecs edu crisp ecsvax uncecs edu russ crisp writes i m considering modernizing some old wiring in my home and i need a little advice on outlet wiring several outlets are the old two prong type without the ground naturally the wire feeding these outlets is without the ground wire i noticed at the fusebox that some circuits have the with ground and that on these circuits the ground wire was tied to the same bus as the neutral white wire this is contrary to the electrical code and should be fixed well my house was built just last year and the breaker box is wired the same way there should be a connection of the ground wire to a ground in the breaker box there also should be a connection of the neutral wire to a ground in the breaker box there should be no other place in the building where such a connection occurs i e not in any of the outlet boxes the neutral white wire is a grounding conductor for the plug and is not safe to touch while the ground green wire is a protective ground and carries no current unless some kind of electrical fault has occurred it s safe to touch the protective ground but not to touch the grounding conductor because there is current in the grounding conductor its outlet box end will not be at the same ground potential as its breaker box end john whitmore
