[Delyrium]

I am new here and need some advice.

I have read quite some threads regarding what I want to do but none give a pretty stragith forward answer to what I want to do.

Just as the thread title, I want to ground an outlet, the idea is to put a 3-prong outlet where the 2 prong one is and run a wire from the ground connection on the new outlet to a grounding rod.

Some aditional info you'll need to properly advice me on this, I cannot properly rewire the house to add the ground, it's all a 2-prong connection scheme, the house is made of brick walls so it would be too expensive to try to do add the ground connection; All outlets are encased in metal casings but I doubt any of them are grounded (how can I test this??) so to protect what gives me to eat (my computer) this is the only idea I could come up with that made a little sense.

Excuse the lack of technical language, I know nothing of it.

Also, as far as electrical codes goes I have no idea what we use here (Honduras, Latin america) but I am pretty sure it would be something along the lines of what the US uses.

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[AllanJ]

You can string the ground wire exposed along the baseboard and up around doorways, roughly following the route of the wiring back to the panel. In the U.S. you run that ground wire all the way to the panel. Or if you reach the fat ground wire that goes between the panel and a ground rod or water pipe first then you can stop there.

Adding a ground rod near the receptacle in question and connecting the ground wire there is not good enough.

 

[user1007]

If your major concern is protecting sensitive computer equipment (and I know the feeling as I now make my living off this thing)? Focus your attention and money on the best surge, power conditioning (not sure I am using the correct term---help electricians!), and battery backup protection you can afford.

A grounded outlet will not help with surges and power fluctuations.

What I think you are after is something that snaps off if a peak of power hits it and before it gets to your computer? A conditioner of some kind will even out voltage and also turn things off if there is a drop in power (bad for motors and harddrives to run on half power). Of course battery backup is a lifesaver if power goes out regularly as it will at least give you time to backup files you are working on and shut the machine down properly.

Such units range in price from $150 or so here on up depending on amount of surge protection, battery backup time and type of battery needed, and other bells and whistles you want. They just plug into your outlet and your equipment plugs into them. Some will let you plug hardwired phone and ethernet cable into them for surge protection as well.

 

[a7ecorsair]

Just as the thread title, I want to ground an outlet, the idea is to put a 3-prong outlet where the 2 prong one is and run a wire from the ground connection on the new outlet to a grounding rod.

Some aditional info you'll need to properly advice me on this, I cannot properly rewire the house to add the ground, it's all a 2-prong connection scheme, the house is made of brick walls so it would be too expensive to try to do add the ground connection; All outlets are encased in metal casings but I doubt any of them are grounded (how can I test this??) so to protect what gives me to eat (my computer) this is the only idea I could come up with that made a little sense.

The ground wire has to be returned to the panel. It won't do you any good to connect it to a separate ground rod that is not bonded to the neutral bar.

 

[Delyrium]

Thank you all for the replies, I will do as posted, new ground from outlet to neutral-ground bond in panel.

I found a pretty nice diagram posted on this forum by member Stubbie of the behaviour or return path of current in case of a fault and it shows there that the ground should go to where neutral-ground bond in the panel, that's definitely the route I will take.

@sdsester
I do have an UPS, AVR and Surge Supressor units With Ethernet and coaxial protection, contrary to what you have said though I read around on the net and in this forum that for surge protection to properly work it needs a proper ground, else it could fail, something that has to do with MOVs or something along the lines, which is why I kinda woke up one day after buying a new PC that I need to run some server virtualization (my faithful 8 year old pentium 4 couldn't do it) that I decided I need a ground for that extra peace of mind.

Thanks again guys