old house/2 prong outlets

So the house I'm in is a rental so I'm not going to pay for any wiring upgrades. It's an older place that only has the two prong outlets with no ground. From reading on here I plan to use a GFI and a power strip with surge protection, but will all of that be neutralized if I don't have the final plug grounded? If so any recommendations on how to make this work? It's a 55 gallon so I'd be looking at plugs for about 600 W of PC lighting, 150 W of heaters, hang-on skimmer, hang on filter, powerheads, and maybe some other minor stuff.

 

Tangster where ya at bud???? He can help you with the elcetrical problems!

 

You definitely need a ground to the outlet box for the GFCI to work properly.

 

Pay to upgrade that one box. Or do it yourself.

 

I agree.

To do one box is pretty cheap and can be done by most people themselves.

Plenty of people here as well to get you through if you need help with it

 

As far as I recall, you should be able to just replace the outlet with a grounded one and ground it to the metal box. If the place is that old to have those kind of outlets then it should be BX wire, and I believe the BX sheathing is the ground.

I am not an electrician and I have taken more than my fair share of jolts in excrutiating electrication events. So, ymmv.

 

I feel for you, alot of landlords will not permit their tenants to change anything in the home even if you are willing to pay for the changes. I would recommend talking with your landlord before touching anything as you can be liable.

 

If you are permitted by your landlord to do this I would call an electrician, but then again that's JMHO

If you want to do this yourself perhaps this may help:

Installing a GFCI Outlet Tutorial

Good luck and be careful.

 

I think the landlord would be willing to let me do any upgrades, especially if I paid for materials. Pretty good guy and easy to get along with on everything so far. One time I had some friends over for a cookout and they arrived before I got home and started the grill. Too bad they didn't move it away from the house first. :Halloween45: When I pulled up they were trying to pull the lid away from the vinyl siding it had melted to, took out about six pieces up and down and a max of about eight foot across, he charged me $20 for the material and time to fix it so he's as fair of a landlord as I'll find. :Halloween49:

I guess my concern was that if I switched to a 3-prong grounded outlet I'd have to run grounding cable through the walls and out the house somewhere since there isn't currently any grounding wire, but if as one person mentioned the sheathing serves as ground that would be the cheapest route as long as it was safe.

Thanks for the informative link also, unfortunately it still didn't address the issue of how to develop the ground - once it's there I have enough shadetree mechanic skills to tighten the screws around the wires. :Halloween47:

 

Have you taken the wall plate off and seen if there is another wire in there you could use for ground??