I recently had vinyl siding installed on my house. Guys wrapped tyvek and added blue insulation first. Then they put mounting plates in the appropriate spots and hung all but one light for me. I got a new light and found they only left a black and white wire extending through a small hole in the foam insulation for the light. Do I need to worry about grounding it? I have an older house with bx, no ground wire. How about all the rest of the lights and floods they installed? I assume they did them the same way.
Thanks.
2007-10-02 13:33:39 · 8 answers · asked by Richard C 3 in Home & Garden ➔ Do It Yourself (DIY)
# 1 wires should be in a box not poked through a hole.
# 2 If your house is wired with bx cable ,you should try to have it rewired. BX is very dangerous,just moving the cable can cause trouble.It may have been code compliant at time of installation but adding to or changing can start trouble.
# 3 The metal case around bx has such high resistance that is may start a fire before tripping a breaker or fuse.
2007-10-02 16:12:56 · answer #1 · answered by greg w 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The white wire is the common or return wire, the black or red usually the power or hot lead. A ground is added as a safety feature so that if the common wire has a problem the power will default to the ground wire and not to you changing the light bulb. You can add a single wire to each of the lights and bond or connect them to a water pipe or better yet, take it all the way back to the main box and bond it to the ground rod there. This is called a floating ground and while not the best way, will meet code and give you some protection.
2007-10-02 14:16:52 · answer #2 · answered by dartiator63 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
In older homes the metal box and bx cable assembly is considered the ground. It's not a good one, but it's there. All splices or connections in wiring must be made inside a box. This is to prevent fires. I'd say you have a bit of a problem.
2007-10-03 14:48:01 · answer #3 · answered by John himself 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Not necessary to pull off the old siding. My grandparents had aluminum siding installed years ago right over their old wood siding it's been about 30 years and all is a ok.
2016-04-07 01:11:52 · answer #4 · answered by Shane 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Maint. guy is insane. White IS NOT ground. White is neutral. Neutrals carry current.
If there is a ground wire in the cable, ground the fixture.
2007-10-02 14:13:13 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
can you replace the back box with a metal one and use a 2 screw bx connector, as chances are it connected in the same fashion to the next box and eventually back at the panel, where it would be grounded ( though not by code ) via the armoured jacked of bx
2007-10-02 15:35:58 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
White is NOT ground. Listen to the previous answers or you may have a shocking experience.
2007-10-02 14:34:29 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
lights don,t need to be grounded, the white wire acts as a ground,
2007-10-02 13:54:32 · answer #8 · answered by William B 7 · 0⤊ 5⤋