Garage Lighting - Wiring Question

[AndrewBird]

Hardly. The cord is plenty big enough to handle the current from the lights. And while I guess it's technically "unsafe" not to have them grounded, any house built in the 50's or before that hasn't been remodeled has 2-wire electrical throughout the whole house, and they aren't burning to the ground.

[bmwman91]

Yeah, it is not all that big of a deal to have ungrounded stuff. Even now there are TONS of things sold with 2-prong plugs. Now, you are technically supposed to switch the breaker off before changing light bulbs and stuff, but nobody does that. If a wire came loose and made the fixture / chassis of a device live, you'd be in for a surprise or worse. I've known a few electricians that say, "yeah 110V doesn't scare me" but I am not sure that I agree with that attitude lol. It can still kill you. As you said though, these houses have been up for a very long time and not burned down, and electrical accidents are probably less common than car accidents.

My 1950's era house has been retrofitted with grounds in most places. LOTS of wires tapping into plumbing all over the house. Since I got a bunch of grounded 14ga AC line cords cheaply at a local surplus joint and the water heater is right there in the garage, it was a pretty simple matter to make sure that the lighting system was grounded. Since I have a lot of plans for the house, I figure that anything I add should be up to current code requirements.

The real kicker will be when I re-do the main water line. It's a 1 1/4" iron pipe now, and I am sure that it is all corroded and constricted. I will eventually dig it out and replace it with 2" PVC, but it also acts as the main ground rod, so I will need to hammer some large copper rods into the ground and hook those up to the plumbing at that point.

[bmwman91]

straight ghetto and fire hazard

Actually, the point of the ground is to ensure that the chassis or metal housing of a device can't be at the hot line voltage if a wire comes loose and contacts it, thereby reducing or eliminating the possibility of shocking a user. You are also supposed to have GFCI breakers employed with this system so that the system trips as soon as you end up with a short between the live and ground wires. With older breakers, there could be a possibility of a fire if the live contacted a retrofitted ground connection since you would need to have the full breaker current running from live to the ground in the wires/device housing for some amount of time until it blew the breaker. As long as the breakers are in good working condition (which may be questionable if they are decades old) it should trip before a fire occurs.

[Thizzelle]

you're talking to an engineer and why half ass it while you're there? Do it right once. I'm like that dude from Canada and I over do everything so I don't ever have to fuck with it later.

[bmwman91]

I agree that it is best to do things to accepted standards whenever possible. However, I don't think it's fair to call ungrounded lights "ghetto fire hazards." Ghetto fire hazard is using an 18ga extension cord instead of NM-B wire in the walls, and then twisting wires together and wrapping them in masking tape for insulation lol. Oh, and then breaking the ground terminal off of said extension cord's plug because it won't fit in the old 2-prong socket that you relocated on the wall next to and under the sink!

Maybe you thought he meant that he ran extension cords through the walls, as opposed to chopping up a cord and using that with the fixtures so that they can plug into adjacent receptacles?

[AndrewBird]

FYI, I'm in a rental, so extension cords stapled to the ceiling work just fine.

If this was in a house I owned, things would be much different. I.E. - In-wall wiring with everything to code and permanently installed.

[spdracrm3]

i just re-converted my single car garage back from a bedroom/bathroom to garage/with laundry at the rear wall and used a single circuit to run lights and since i had the ceiling down to replace water damaged sheetrock i put four outlets in a square pattern in the ceiling (makes eight plug-in's controlled by 2 3way switches one at door to house one near garage door) and i can hang lights where i need them with corded plugs long enough to put them in any pattern i want . can even mount them on the walls if i feel i need to. outlets around the walls (low at front bench height at rear) are on two circuits and i can plug my Miller TIG welder into my 240v dryer outlet.