Grounding a 3-prong dryer plug

dryergroundreceptacle

I just bought a house, and my new washer/dryer is being delivered tomorrow. I have the older style 3-prong 220 outlet, which I know I'm allowed to still use. I also have a 2-prong 110 outlet next to it for the washer, which I don't think I can use. Since I have to upgrade the 110 outlet, I was going to just do both at the same time.

The outlets are located at the exact opposite diagonal corner of my house as the main panel. I had planned to just pull out the old ungrounded 10/3 and 12/3 and replace it foot by foot back to the breaker, ground it, and call it a day – but then I noticed that my breakers main ground runs all the way back to the laundry room, and connects to my main water line which just happens to be next to the washer.

My question, would it be safe, and code, to just run a #10 ground wire over to the same ground clamp on the water line? Or maybe secure a secondary ground bus near the water line, to tie into?

I know the codes need to cover every possible application, but it just seems silly to run $200 worth of new grounded cable back to my breaker, to tie into a ground that literally runs all the way back to where I started.

Thoughts? Thank you!!

Best Answer

You can retrofit a just ground wire back to the panel.

They broadly liberalized the rules for this in 2014 to allow this for almost any circuit -- but they had already liberalized the rules for dryer circuits some time prior. In fact, since the washer and dryer plugs both come out of the same service panel, they can share the ground wire.

Grounds don't need to be insulated (must be green or green/yellow if they are) and they don't need to follow the same route as the wiring they are grounding. They do have to be installed using proper wiring methods. Grounds must be large enough for the circuit they are protecting.

All the circuits out of that panel can share the ground, so it helps to run a "backbone" to the big appliances in #10 or #8, then tie everything else to that in reverse order of size. Splices are allowed in ground wiring, just do it legally in in junction boxes (which means pre-planning where those junction boxes would be useful when laying the backbone.)