Electrical: Power conditioner indicates "Ground Fault"

lo.fi.love

lo.fi.love

Functionally obsessed.
EDIT: Sorry, the title should be "Power conditioner indicates LINE Fault"

Hey folks,

So, here's some background. I'm building a project studio in my bedroom. I live in a three-bedroom flat in Oakland, in a part of town notorious for shoddy electrical systems (among other things). My bedroom has only one grounded outlet, the rest are two-pin.

I just bought a power conditioner. I plugged it in to the grounded outlet and it indicated a Line Fault. I took it into the kitchen, which also has a grounded outlet, and the power conditioner indicated that the line is OK. These two outlets are on separate circuits.

Now, I really don't know what to do. Our sluml, ahem, LANDlord is totally unresponsive and won't do anything to resolve ANYTHING. Granted that this situation might be unresolvable on my own, I'm really not sure what to do.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? Do I need to give any more information here? I will REALLY appreciate any help because I'm totally stumped.

Thank you very much!
Jeff
 
Run to the HomeDepot and pic up one of these...
382380_Full.jpg


Its also possible that they got the hot and neutral backwards.
 
Awesome! Thanks for the suggestion. I'll get one of those this weekend.

And if anything appears to be wrong, I'll call an electrician. I should be able to deduct his fee from our rent.

Thanks!
 
Great news!

I bought a little line testing gadget from Ace today. When I used it on the outlet, it indicated that hot and neutral were backward/reversed/whatever.

So, I shut off the circuit, pulled out the outlet, flipped the wires, and ta-da! The line tester and my power conditioner both gave me the green light.

Thanks to everyone for the help! I'm really excited to resolve this issue!

Jeff
 
It may still be worth it to call an electrician. This outlet may or may not be grounded properly. I'll call around tomorrow to get quotes.

What is involved in grounding an outlet? I'm leaving this to the experience and knowledge of a trained professional, but I'm curious to know what this might cost. Any ideas? I'll post here after I talk to some electricians.
 
In the old days, when they used only 2-prong wall outlets, they only had a 2 conductor wire going to each outlet.

So to change a 2 prong outlet to a 3 prong you would need to run a new 3 conductor wire from the fuse box to the outlet.
It might not be worth it.

Two prong outlets are grounded, but in simple terms the 3rd wire is more of a safety/noise bonus that in most cases doesn't matter. It is preferable, and safer, but a two prong outlet is grounded... it wouldn't work if it wasn't.
 
dintymoore said:
In the old days, when they used only 2-prong wall outlets, they only had a 2 conductor wire going to each outlet.

So to change a 2 prong outlet to a 3 prong you would need to run a new 3 conductor wire from the fuse box to the outlet.
It might not be worth it.

Two prong outlets are grounded, but in simple terms the 3rd wire is more of a safety/noise bonus that in most cases doesn't matter. It is preferable, and safer, but a two prong outlet is grounded... it wouldn't work if it wasn't.
Click to expand...

So then, am I getting the full benefit of my power conditioner? When I popped the outlet out of the wall, there were only two conductors.

I don't know when our building was built, but I'm guessing either the 1930s or 1940s. Since then a few questionable modifications have been made, including more units attached to the back of the original structure / "Infill".
 
Do you have any noise issues with any of your gear? If not, I wouldnt sweat the grounding thing *too* much.

Also, alot of older houses used metal sheathed cable, and the metal sheath actually server as the ground. The metal sheath was connected to the metal junction box and the ground from teh outlet was connected to the metal junction box... so, if you have metal sheathed cable and metal junction boxes in your house it *could* just be a matter of connecting a wire from the ground terminal on the outlet to the ground screw inside the junction box.





*I'm not an electrician* :)
 
lo.fi.love said:
So then, am I getting the full benefit of my power conditioner? When I popped the outlet out of the wall, there were only two conductors.
Click to expand...

My house was made in the 1940's and was originally two separate wires, not even enclosed together.

Your power conditioner was no doubt designed for a 3 prong outlet. As far as "full benefit", I'd say yes because it will make the best of what you have.

Just plug your Ace tester into the power conditioner and if it's says it's good and there's no audio hum then you're ok.

Jeff_D said:
Do you have any noise issues with any of your gear? If not, I wouldnt sweat the grounding thing *too* much....
Click to expand...

I agree. At the very most, you could use a 3 to 2 prong adapter and run a ground from the adapter to a new ground rod if there was hum.

In the old days, in a fuse box you had the hot and the ground, period. The hot was the 115V from the power company, and the ground was a metal stake going into the earth. One wire came from each to the two prongs in an outlet.

In the three prong system, you have those same two wires but they also attach all the ground wires together inside the fuse box and then run a wire from that to each outlet. It's like they run the ground wire twice, that's all it is, and there's benefits for sure but if you're not getting noise you're fine.
 
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