Since grounding is so important for saftey, why don't most electrical items in a home have a ground plug?

Question

Light fixtures and electrical boxes must have a ground. Yet lamps, that get touched often, have only a 2 prong plug. In fact most things like clocks, TVs, VCRs, lamps, vac, toaster, can opener, ETC don't have a ground plug at all. It seems that grounding really isn't that important for our safety.

Answer 1

keep in mind the NEC is primarily about fire codes
so the ground wire present in a modern house electrical system is to ensure a ground fault path in the event of the fault in the WIRE, that is the panel is set up to protect the wire, not anything plugged into a given receptacle. mosts things such as clock etc.. are plastic and not metal, and thus do not need the ground, bedrooms as of 2002 require AFCI circuit protection to protect from fires due to frayed cords which can arc. Grounding is definetely part of the safetly system, it's UL job to ensure every device that has any sort of electrical current flowing through it be tested for safety sake, hence the UL label as a legally safe sold device.

Answer 2

Most of these units use the neutral as the ground and it's not good to do this. The reason they don't have a U Ground plug is because of the lobbyist in Washington for these manufactures. Instead they now require a Ground Fault Receptacle be installed for the units. The problem is, these will not work with just a 2 prong plug. Money talks doesn't it. Yes, nothing is more important than proper grounding.

Answer 3

we introduced a ground in the late 50s and early 60s. back then the appliances were made from metal. the danger was that something inside would malfunction, and apply electricity to the metal shell of the appliance. this would in turn, become a shock hazzard to the user. now we have the technology to make things out of plastic. this outer shell being plastic poses no shock hazzard to the user. even if a hot wire were to come unhooked from its terminal and fall against the plastic housing of the appliance you are using, it would not shock you. so there is no need for a ground wire to protect you from a double insulated appliance, or an appliance that has at least 2 layers of non conductive material between you the user, and the source of the electricity.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Grounding is certainly done for safety. Things that are double insulated usually don't require this feature as they've beefed up the safety via thicker or carefully engineered insulation placement.

Answer 6

Most things that are metal or within reach of a metal surface etc, have to be grounded to earth, otherwise you are lookin at a fault condition that could electicute you

Answer 7

Depends on the year they were installed

The builiding code in 1827 was ???