Background: I recently moved into an apartment building in Canada (built in 1969). I don't know much about the electrical code, how grand-fathering works within it, etc., but I have an intermediate knowledge of household wiring.
Some previous electrical shenanigans raised my suspicions and induced me to do some investigation in my new apartment's electrical work.
My first observation: none of my receptacles' junction boxes have grounding wires going into them. I figure that's a byproduct of the age of this building. My circuit tester doesn't complain about an open ground. I've read that electrical cable conduit could be used to provide grounding, so I figure that must be what's going on. Is this correct?
Second observation: None of the receptacles' junction boxes have grounding screw terminals. Instead, a knockout cover was punched out on one side, and used to improvise a clamp that holds down a short ground wire.
Seeing that made my jaw drop. There's barely no mechanical retention here. I was able to pull that cable loose with practically no tension at all.
So my questions:
- There's no way that's legit, right?
- Is is possible that the building is grand-fathered onto old electrical code rules, and doesn't need to provide proper grounding?
Best Answer
The conduit's fine...but that ground wire sure isn't
While a properly installed conduit system provides quite solid grounding performance, the pigtail from the receptacle isn't what I'd call an acceptable level of workmanship by any stretch of the imagination. I would get a proper 10-32 grounding screw and use it to attach the pigtail to the ground hole in the back of the box if I were in your shoes.