Outlet choice question

Hello all, I am moving into a older apartment in Rutland VT! The laws being so good there I can grow legally again. HOWEVER I have an issue that I have not come across before.


The apartment has all 2 prong outlets except for three boxes in the kitchen that are GFCI. I have a 1,000w digital ballast that I would like to use in a room with only 2 prong outlets. And I am not sure if the house is grounded or not, and cannot find the construction date of the home either.

Would it be safer for me to:

1) Install those 3-2 plug adapters in the grow room and run the light off of one, and the fans off of the other outlets in the same room.

2) Run an adequate extension cord from the kitchen GFCI outlet to the grow room for the light, about 35'. And run the fans off of the outlets in the grow room on 3-2 adaptors.



I am thinking the second idea, since it puts the biggest power draw on the "safest" outlets in the kitchen. And spreads the grows total power draw over two breakers in the main panel.

What do you the collective ICMag community think is my best choice to make this work?

My understanding of ground fault circuit interrupters is they turn off the power if the unit being powered develops a fault that energizes the chassis. Nothing is grounded, but the enclosure cannot become hot. The GFCI outlets could replace the ungrounded outlets in the grow room and save thirty five feet of wiring.

Phaeton said:

My understanding of ground fault circuit interrupters is they turn off the power if the unit being powered develops a fault that energizes the chassis. Nothing is grounded, but the enclosure cannot become hot. The GFCI outlets could replace the ungrounded outlets in the grow room and save thirty five feet of wiring.

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Thanks for the reply! I would 100% like to change all the outlets in the apartment to GFCI outlets, but I do not want to deal with the landlords questions as to why. The less he has to talk to me the less likely he is to think about me, hence my hillbilly wiring ideas.

The fact that the GFCI will stop heat buildup is enough reason for me to buy a thick gauge cord and run it along the top of the hallway wall.

GFCI does not have anything to do with grounding, it has a tiny transformer inside which detects a 5mA difference between hot and neutral and kills the power.

Chances are if u have 2 prong outlets there probably is no ground to connect a 3 prong to in the box.

Herein lies a problem, digital ballasts require a ground to dissipate electrical noise aka RF interference, if your shit is improply grounded or not grounded at all you could end up generat ing interferece that messes up cable tv, radio, or wiif nearby.

I personally would never hook up growlights and fans etc, on an ungrounded circuit.

This is a lot of power we deal with that can burn the house down if it's not hooked up safely.

IIIShadesOfBlck said:

Herein lies a problem, digital ballasts require a ground to dissipate electrical noise aka RF interference, if your shit is improperly grounded or not grounded at all you could end up generating interference that messes up cable tv, radio, or wifi nearby.

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I don't have any RF problem at the current time, but that is good to know.

IIIShadesOfBlck said:

....

Chances are if u have 2 prong outlets there probably is no ground to connect a 3 prong to in the box.

Herein lies a problem, digital ballasts require a ground to dissipate electrical noise aka RF interference, if your shit is improply grounded or not grounded at all you could end up generat ing interferece that messes up cable tv, radio, or wiif nearby.

I personally would never hook up growlights and fans etc, on an ungrounded circuit.

.....
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Please correct me if I am wrong, but. I thought that the older 2-prong houses were grounded on the neutral wire and into the 10' pole in the ground, IF built after 1960. So that the neutral wire served as the ground.
THEN the three prong was implemented with a dedicated ground wire, to avoid the possibility of the neutral turning into a positive as well. So I thought I was still "grounded" on a 2-prong if I can verify the house was built after the 60s date. But not as securely grounded as a 3 prong.


That being said, when I plug in my digital ballast, can I have an AM radio next to it to test for RF production? Or does the RF effect happen sporadically?

what's up, I'm nearby in Mass. I would open up one of the outlets in the grow bedroom and see if there's a ground wire available in the house wiring. If so, just install the grounded outlet you want and move forward. No way the landlord is ever going to notice one of the outlets having 3 prongs instead of 2. If somehow he were to notice just say your computer needed a 3-prong outlet.

I wouldn't worry about installing a GFI outlet in the bedroom. If you want GFI on the circuit just use a multibar (powerstrip) that has GFI, that's what I do. Most of the good ones have surge protection too - I use TrippLite multibars by the way, they're the best quality.

If there's no ground wire avaible I'd go with the heavy-gauge 30 foot extension cord. I use one on my basement dehumidifier and it works great. Just not good for stealth if you can't hide it.

Just because the GFCI's are there, doesn't mean that they are grounded. I have a friend that had a lot of rental properties, and in order to pass inspection, any outlet within 6 feet of a water source had to have a GFCI outlet. Many of the houses did not have a ground wire, so i just installed the GFCI outlet with nothing hooked to the ground lug. Guess what, the silly little light comes on, and if you press the test button, it will trip. Every one of them passed (housing) inspection. I wouldn't be surprised if your not dealing with the same thing. If you are actually worried about grounding, you need to open up the boxes and see what you have. Also I hope you realize that a GFCI will do nothing other than stop you from being electrocuted; you don't gain anything in the realm of grounding, current protection or arc protection.

GFCI's don't need a ground to do their job, which is to detect leaks to ground, like thru a person or anything, and open the power circuit very quickly to stop it.

If your electronic ballast uses the case ground to prevent RFI you'll want to ground it if you can. If the house is done in armored ccable or conduit then the metal receptacle box may be good enough to do that but it's not really good enough to be considered a safety like a separate ground wire back to the breaker panel.

GFCI's are bulky so sometimes extending the wires & using an extension box like this makes it easier. You don't really care how it looks & you can save the old parts & put it back to original when you leave.

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/e...extension-1-1-2-deep-1-2-end-knockouts-welded