But I need a three prong!

May 9, 2009 10:03 AM

I just moved into a new house - it's Victorian, so there's some older technologies and stuff around here. On the wall closest to where I have my television, DVD player, DVR cable box, cable modem, Airport, and Nintendo 64, there is only a 2 pronged socket. Already I'm only using extension cords, but not only am I going to run out of room, it's not grounded. So what is the best way to adapt? Do I get a 2-prong to 3-prong adapter, and if so, can I plug a power strip into it? Do I try and find a 2-prong power strip? Or do I ask the landlord if she can hire someone to change it? Is this expensive/complicated? Thanks!
posted by dithmer to home & garden (16 comments total)

Go to your local hardware store, buy an outlet (cheap) and a screwdriver (more expensive), turn off the circuit breaker (confirm by plugging a known working lamp or something in!), swap the outlet (Make sure to get the polarity right! You can get one of those little plug-in testers with three lights to be certain), turn the circuit breaker back on.

Yes, this will kill you instantly just by looking at it, you don't know if it's properly grounded, you could get sued, or just immediately thrown in jail cuz it's totally illegal, the local electrician's union could stone you to death within the hour, the house could burn down and kill the next family to move in and their adorable dog and fair-haired children and the hot cousin who was visiting that day blah blah blah. But it works!
posted by trevyn at 10:11 AM on May 9

When you're swapping the outlet, you might want to connect the ground to something.
posted by box at 10:16 AM on May 9

Eh, you generally are connecting the ground to the box through the screws that hold the outlet in the box. But anyway, here's a link. It looks like they're more safety-minded than I am:

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20065922,00.html
posted by trevyn at 10:26 AM on May 9

I'm not saying it's a great idea, but for many years in many different old apartments I've faced a similar situation and resorted to what you suggested. I used 2-prong to 3-prong adapters, and then plugged (3-prong) power strips into them. I had no problems.

If you can get the landlord to change it, even better. But I think a lot of landlords would laugh at you.
posted by aswego at 10:31 AM on May 9

If the house is old enough to have 2-prong outlets, there's probably no ground available at the outlet at all. Connecting the ground pin to the box will just give you (and the next person to move in) a false sense of safety, and is even less close to being to-code than the current situation.

If it's an old house with knob-and-tube wiring, adding grounded outlets is a major undertaking, involving taking the walls apart enough to run new wiring (or, if you're lucky, drilling into a crawlspace or attic to run wire there). The landlord's unlikely to do it on request.

At times I have simply driven a ground stake into the ground outside the window and wired that to a 2-prong-to-3-prong converter. Or attached the ground wire to a cold water pipe (be sure to test for continuity first, otherwise a fault will simply electrify all your faucets). Most equipment will operate perfectly well without a ground, though (that is, using a 2-to-3-prong adapter with nothing connected to the little ground tab).
posted by hattifattener at 10:33 AM on May 9

A grounded outlet is there to (potentially) save you from electrocution in case something goes wrong inside whatever is plugged in to it. Basically it gives stray current a place to go that has a much lower resistance than you do, and it works - sometimes. Ground fault circuit interrupt kills the power within a fraction of a second and works much better at keeping you not dead in the advent of something going horribly wrong.

I'm not sure either one will do anything to prevent your electronics from becoming useless slag, though. I say that because most digital circuits are looking for pretty low voltages and many will be dead at voltages that I could short out with my fingers and never notice. Unless you have one of those super deluxe power strips which clean up your power and pre-spot stains in your laundry, the ground is probably not going to do much for you and you can get by with one of those $0.75 2-prong to 3-prong adapters.

Since we use electricity for a lot of things that would have never occurred to the people whou built your house, it's likely that you don't have too many circuits. It may be worth your while to figure out which circuits or which so you don't overload things.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:06 AM on May 9

Installing your own outlet with the ground wired to nothing is a terrible idea.

Get a power strip with a circuit breaker and a two-to-three prong adapter (79 cents at your local hardware store)
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:14 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

I expect that it's a terrible idea (and please point that out if anyone knows better) but you might have another outlet in the room that is grounded and if you attach a plastic coated copper wire to it's grounding screw inside the box (turning off the power first), you could run that wire over and attach it to the grounding screw on the new outlet you're installing. You just need to clip the wire securely along the baseboard.

I've found that ungrounded outlets can cause a background humming sound in my stereo
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:29 AM on May 9

(Depending on your priorities, you might be able to save 79 cents by just pulling the cylindrical ground plug out with pliers.)
posted by box at 11:33 AM on May 9

"can I plug a power strip into it?"

If your question actually was "Can I plug a surge suppressor power strip into it?" then the answer is "definitely not" as surge suppressors need a connected ground to dump over-voltage surges into.

If you aren't plugging that array of devices into a surge suppressor, you might want to consider it. I had a lightning strike near my house, every electronic device (clocks, telephones, etc.) that wasn't protected was destroyed. My computers and audio-visual gear were on suppressors and were unharmed.
posted by fydfyd at 12:03 PM on May 9

If the outlet cover has a metal screw, you can buy a cheap device at the hardware store to test if that center screw is grounded. If it is, then replacing the outlet, or using a 2-3 prong adapter are both simple options that give you what you are looking for.

Otherwise, you really do need to ask the landlord or remove some level of deliberately installed safety. The simplest is the 2-3 plug without ground, but as noted, you lose any surge suppression or protection built into the devices int he event of a fault. As noted above, adding a ground wire to an old victorian house where there isn't one already is unfortunately not a cheap or simple exercise.
posted by meinvt at 12:21 PM on May 9

trevyn's advice is absolutely horrible. Do not do that. Future residents will not have any good way to know that you've not properly connected the ground of the replacement 3-prong outlet (and no, just putting it in a metal box does not have anything to do with grounding it). The flippant attitude regarding how it could burn down your house is equally horrible. Electricity is not something to toy with, nor take lightly.

The 3-to-2 prong adapter is probably the easiest option, but here's the very important part that nobody ever bothers to do when using these things: You must attach a wire from the third prong of the adapter to a ground point. This is typically a water pipe.

The adapter is never supposed to be used without taking this very important step.
posted by odinsdream at 1:00 PM on May 9

I made do for four years with the 3-to-2 prong adapters in my apartment. I was also blowing fuses all the time -- another consequence of living in an old house, like you do. I did not mention any of this to my landlord, for fear of having him laugh at me or tell me it was all too expensive to fix, and assuming that he knew about the problem.

When I was moving out, I mentioned these problems to him. He immediately got the electrician in and had them redo the electricity in the whole apartment. He was upset that I hadn't told him earlier. It was a fire hazard, he could have lost his building, and as it turns out he hadn't known that this apartment had such bad wiring.

So: ask your landlord to deal with it for you.
posted by wyzewoman at 1:05 PM on May 9

It is expensive & the landlord should fix it. This a sign that they haven't updated or touched the wiring since the early 70's, when grounded plates became the legal standard. If the landlord can't afford basic upkeep for the essential components of their business, like basic wiring- they should get out of being a landlord. I lived in an old place and got some rent taken off and ran a long extension cord from a grounded plug. Get that in writing. Its also a potential fire hazard (small but how small? can't say) - get renters insurance & a fire box.

Aside: You can swap out the the outlet for a GFCI OUTLET, which is usually seen in the kitchen or bathroom - they often have a built in reset switch. This will keep you from being killed by a fault - it won't save your equipment. This would be better than nothing I suppose, but a big hassle.
posted by zenon at 2:53 PM on May 9

Wow. You've already got all the right advice above but Jesus, trevyn's advice is so bad that it deserves piling on. Don't even consider doing that. As odinsdream says, the most damaging thing you'd be doing is removing the information that the outlets aren't grounded, and potentially setting up the next tenant for a dangerous accident. That's in the best case, where amateur wiring doesn't burn the house down.

Two-to-three adapters and power strips are pretty much standard equipment in old houses, I'm afraid. There's no way in a million years your landlord will change this, unless they're planning other major construction -- it's almost certainly grandfathered into the code (and therefore only required if opened by some other work) and it's a multi-thousand-dollar repair. Or, to look at is as a landlord: It's cheaper to go without a tenant for several months (looking for someone who won't gripe about it) than to fix it.
posted by range at 5:51 PM on May 9

I swapped out a 2 pronger for a GFCI with a floating frame ground. There's a sticker in the GFCI saying something about "No frame ground" that you can put on the outlet. GFCI is much more likely to save your life than the 3rd prong anyway.
posted by chairface at 3:16 PM on May 11