A wire in my garage got damaged. Breaker is off now. The wire feeds the stove on the other side of a split level home. It is an old cloth covered wire, with no ground. Red, white, and black wires only.
I am going to get my brother (power company senior tech) to assist me in a solution, but want to get my head around it before breaking it to him.
The plan: The wire coming from the panel box is just too short to tie back into. I want to run a length of 6/3 cable (w/ ground) to an exposed 4-11/16 x 2-1/8 square junction box mounted in the ceiling (joist). Bring the new cable and old still running to the stove wire into the box. Use 3 appropriate Polaris connectors to complete the circuit.
My question….what do I do with the ground wire on the cable? The box should be grounded, yes? Can/should I ground the box? Would doing so be a code violation? What is the best solution other than the impossible task of running cable all the way to my kitchen?
Best Answer
The junction box must remain accessible, but I've a hunch you know that, as a good sense of rules and practices seems evident.
Yes, just ground the metal box. I would use a #10 pigtail to the 10-32 ground screw hole on the box. They sell adorable green screws for that purpose.
The stove is grandfathered, so it continues to be legal without a ground. I didn't say "safe". As such, I strongly encourage you to ground the oven at this time. No need to fish a 6/3+gnd cable on that impossible route, you only need to route a bare #10 ground wire via any route. It does not even need to reach this box or the panel. It will suffice to reach anywhere with a #10 or larger ground wire back to the panel, or metal conduit to the panel, or anywhere on the grounding electrode system (the wires from the panel to your water pipe or ground rods).
An equally effective (but $90) alternative is to fit a 2-pole GFCI breaker on the oven circuit, and jumper the oven as if it was grounded, i.e. Its internal neutral-ground jumper pulled. However, this method brings with it the chance of nuisance trips.