Xref: utzoo misc.consumers.house:7236 sci.electronics:7537
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!math.ucla.edu!julia!hgw
From: hgw@julia.math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Grounding old electrics
Keywords: Electrical, Ground, House, Hints
Message-ID: <1613@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 24 Aug 89 15:43:28 GMT
References: <2171@netcom.UUCP> <5057@teklds.CAE.TEK.COM> <26924@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Sender: news@MATH.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: hgw@math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong)
Distribution: misc
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Lines: 22

In article <26924@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@diablo.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) writes:
>
>As Henry Spencer likes to say "NEUTRAL IS NOT GROUND!"
>
>I believe that to do it right, you need a separate ground wire, of
>ampacity at least equal to the hot and neutral wires. Otherwise, a
>short from hot to ground could end up burning out the ground wire
>before the breaker blows. Tying the socket's ground and neutral
>together and only using a neutral wire exposes you to the voltage drop
>across the neutral wire which can be substantial. 
>


I was once told that I could use the metal conduit as the ground and eliminate
the third wire.  Is this true?  Is this safe.  I have flexible aluminum
conduits running to all of my boxes in the house.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harold Wong         (213) 825-9040 
UCLA-Mathnet; 3915F MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555
ARPA: hgw@math.ucla.edu          BITNET: hgw%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT