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Electricians of fediverse, should I have my selfhosting box grounded? (self.selfhosted)

submitted 6 months ago by verstra to c/[email protected]

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I know that the answer is yes, I should, but outlets near the setup are not grounded (even though they look like they are) and I don't want to have wires running though my living room.

The real question is what are potential problems ? Occasional system reboots? Permanent damage to PSU? Permanent damage to other components?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Can confirm. Neighbors house had an attic fire with knob & tube wiring.

... Just like the stuff still in my place today. Eek! Landlord won't upgrade unless there is a problem. In my house, the breakers are all 20amp and that's a lot to run on, best guess, 70 year old wires.

Oh, and do not assume anything is wired as expected. Test after. I've found a couple plugs "upgraded" to 3-prong by jumping the load and ground together. That made for a fun firework show when my metal fan touched something metal. Even the landlord was impressed by that stupidity.

A cheaper solution is to take a copper wire and connect the ground screw of the socket to a water pipe. It does the job and is better than nothing.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Note to anyone heeding this advice: it has to be a metal water pipe, no plastic.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Second note, the metal pipe has to be continuously metal from at minimum where it enters the house, don't trust that if you see a metal water pipe (or drain pipe) that it's grounded.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Looks like your landlord and the people who flipped my house hired the same electrician. They did the same stupid thing jumping the load and ground so that it'd pass inspection (the little tester will show everything properly grounded).

Unnnnfortunately, that's also a good way to cause serious damage to things and in my case it managed to short in such a way that it melted one of the phases coming into the house and damn near burned my house down.

Don't do stupid shit with your outlets, kids, because uh, yeah, fire.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I've found a couple plugs "upgraded" to 3-prong by jumping the load and ground together. That made for a fun firework show when my metal fan touched something metal. Even the landlord was impressed by that stupidity.

Ah, the good old reverse polarity bootleg ground.

Fun fact: RPBG is the one fault that those plug-in outlet testers can't recognize

Edit: Wait, no, that would be hot bootleg ground, they should catch that. RPBG has the hot and neutral switched, and also a bootleg ground to the neutral that's actually hot