Outside house lights are not grounded.

No, All older houses do not have a ground anywhere in the house.

IMHO, based on experience, what is told to me....

The absense of a ground is a potential for trouble if the casing becomes energized. If the light is inaccessible, and you never change bulbs without it being de-energized, then your chance for electrocution is higly minimized.

Being a worry-wart, I would try figure how to get the case completey plastic(insulated) or get a ground to it(rewire).

Good luck, and always follow all codes,

tom @

Good advice!

An energized box can do more than electrocute you. If you are changing lightbulbs at the top of a conductive (aluminum) ladder, a shock could knock you off the ladder.

Beachcomber

Sounds like a GFCI on that circuit would be a good idea.

I have two outdoor lights (one pole light, on pair of PIR activated flood lamps) on GFCI protected circuits. We have had many thunderstorms with heavy rain sometimes blowing almost horizontal and the GFCIs have not tripped.

If you have any doubt about grounds on a circuit, add a GFCI.

This is the advice you get when you ask Engineers how to wire your house. If your house is fairly old then THERE IS NO GROUND in the entire house. A good indication of this is the

2-prong receptacles and not 3-prong throughout the house. Trust me, it is not worth it to re-wire the house and drive a ground rod and bond cold water pipes and water heater just to be able to ground a light fixture. And a GFI will definately serve no purpose without a ground.

I guess he could do worse.

Perhaps.

Complete BS. They're _highly_ recommended for houses without ground conductors.

Hello, and I'm getting the impression that you are one of those that think (electrical?) engineers are a bunch of tie-with-white-short-sleeve-shirt impractical nerds. Just whom do you think provides the principal input to the writers of electrical safety and other standards that find their way into electrical codes? Electricians? Of course not every degreed EE is going to know how to wire a house, if that is your point. But structure wiring technique is not usually part of an EE's job description. But he/she can certainly appreciate the reasoning behind those sections in the NEC and the standards of UL, CSA, etc. And he/she usually knows where to get the applicable info.

So perhaps you are a master electrician. But that doesn't mean you understand anything beyond basic electrical theory. And I've met electricians that, while arguably skilled at their craft, are often way off base on many electrical fundamentals. They continue to provide "explanations" (based upon faulty reasoning) for various phenomena. Electricans should also stop and reflect upon who designs those useful VOMs and other test devices in their toolboxes. Without electrical engineers there would be no electricians and related technicians, not the other way around. And the trainers of the "first" electricians that wired America most likely were engineers.

You affirm a comment of Marilyn vos Savant: "The occupational group most responsible for modern society is engineers, who should win a 'most underappreciated award'." And she wasn't just talking about EEs. End of rant. Sincerely,

John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: snipped-for-privacy@itd.nrl.navy.mil Naval Research Laboratory

4555 Overlook Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20375-5337

FYI and anyone else looking at this thread.

Is the mounting box metal? Is your wiring in conduit? If both are true then you may have a ground but not a ground wire. The conduit is a legal and fully code compliant grounding system.

There is likely a small green screw in the back of the box to attach the ground wire from a fixture. Switches and older houses just use the mounting screws to the box.

Also for the GFI arugement: GFIC devices are to detect current that is NOT returning on the neutral. I.e. using your body as a path to ground. This is usfull in almost all cases, just too expensive to be required universally.

RickR

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Don't get me wrong. I'm very greatful for Engineers. They put rubber stampings on the Blueprints that I design for big $$.

My point is simply in the "Hands On" area. It doesn't show you how to bend pipe or bust your knuckles pulling wire in the books. Or how to get there late, take long lunches and leave early at the customers expense. :~)

You don't normally put lighting on GFCI circuits.

SO, you freely admit that you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Quite true.

The reason is that lighting circuits often have minor ground faults that will trip a GFCI when there isn't a safety problem.

I haven't looks at the latest and greatest NEC but about 10 years ago I had a handbook. There was quite a bit of discussion about ground fault trip limits in an industrial situation. We are talking about 100s of amps here, not just 5 ma or so.

My point was that most lighting fixtures today just don't have much leakage. There just isn't much of a chance of the lights going out because, say, an insect got into a fixture.

I hope that no one questions that GFCIs will greatly reduce the risk of electrocution in any circuit. The trade off is between the risk of someone being harmed from the lights going off unexpectedly or someone being harmed by a fault to a non-grounded conductor.

You pay your money and take your choices.

Yup, but still don't put outside lights on GFI circuits anymore. Learned that lesson already. A GFI circuit will trip just getting moisure in a floodlight socket.

MLR

Again, my experience usggests that isn't a real problem anymore.

After all, we aren't talking about bare bulbs hanging from bare wires on water coverered insulators.

More to the point, I routinely have run my outdoor Christmas lights from a GFCI circuit. I think I had one "trip". Frankly, it's hard to find a more "leaky" lighting circuit than a few strings of Xmass lamps.

A GFCI serves a HUGE purpose without a ground, and does not require a ground in order to function, as any engineer knows. It can save your life should you contact the live load conductor while grounded through the earth. In fact, it is a code-compliant method of installing three-wire receptacles on a two-wire system.

Ben Miller