Electric Plug replacement question

[Kathy]

This house has all 2 prong sockets; I want to change them over to 3 prong ones. There's two reason I need to change the plugs; 1. most everything is now 3 prong and 2. these are so 'loose' that even bending out the prongs on anything I'm trying to plug in isn't enough to hold the plug in the socket.

Here's my questions:

Since the third wire is ground-where do I hook that wire?

If there's metal boxes between the studs; do I hook it to the box?

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can offer.

[bobclark]

I am no electrition but, unless you have a wire running to ground it will not do you any good

I will ask my dad and get back.

[bobclark]

I was right kathy, unless you have wire that runs to a copper rod deep in the ground, it will not be grounded.

but you could change the plugs as you say but it will not be grounded. then you would not have to cut up your plugs though

Am i explaining it well enough?

[Kathy]

can I ground them to a copper water pipe? I haven't taken off any of the plug plates yet so I'm not sure what kind of wire I'm going to discover. For all I know it could be the old asbestos wrapped aluminum!

I have to pull the main fuses but I'm still going to check the line I'm working on with a multimeter just to be safe-you never know how some of these older homes were jerry rigged.

Thanks for the advice Bob, I will have nice new plugs sooner or later. ;D

[bobclark]

im not sure, but keep in mind that it need be there wil be a jolt of elc. running threw ,trying to find ground. Im not sure i would want it in the water lines

I just dont know. be safe

[dirty]

in order to get my last house up to code i needed to ground to a ground rod, the water line and the gas line. yes the gas line. if the work hadn't needed to be inspected i'd have skipped that part.

[Deleted]

Kathy:
Take a look at these sites they may help with your problem.
www.improvenet.com/Homeowner/adviceandresources/messageboard/questions/electrical.html#ground
www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/print/0,17071,562098,00.html

[bobclark]

thanks bjba

[antiquestuff]

You want a copper stake driven deep into the ground and the ground wire attached well to it. I know it's often just attached to water or gas lines, but I'd never want to do that myself...