Good Morning SigForum. I have a pretty simple electrical question I wanted to present to the all knowing group here.

I bought a 20 year old house and am updating fire alarms and some light fixtures. Electrical always kind of freaks me out and I want to do this the right, safe way and have not really found a good answer.

The hallway lights I bought and started installing has only a black & white wire coming out of them. No green wire or grounding screw. I took out the existing light fixture and it has a black wire (wire nut to black wire), a white wire (wire nut to white wire), and a ground wire that's screwed to the green screw on the houses junction box. The wire then continues on to a wire nut attached to an unsheathed copper colored wire. This is on a non GFCI circuit to a 20 amp breaker.

Do I just attach white to white and black to black? Then, remove the GRD wire all together and cap off the house ground and tuck it in? Any help would be much appreciated!

If it makes any difference, 1 light is on one wall switch and breaker. The other two lights are wired together and can be turned on by 2 different switches and a separate breaker. I did turn off the breaker & wall switch before removing, and checked power with a pen light tool. Thanks again.

I’m not an electrician, but I can tell you that some fixtures/appliances just don’t have a ground wire. But do check to make sure there is not a screw on the body of the fixture for you to attach that ground wire.

You’ll notice that a lot of lamps only use a two pronged plug, so no ground connection there either. I don’t know why.

Thanks for your response. I read similar, that some don't ground, especially smaller LED style lights. I also read something about if it's not grounded, the breaker needs to be updated to a GFI style circuit. It wasn't clear if that was for a plug outlet or a light fixture.

Oh, and there is not any grounding points on the new light. Nothing in the instructions either. Basically, turn off breaker, black to black and white to white. Turn on breaker.

I'm assuming I am over complicating this - but I worry about safety and my family. Code changes all the time and I'm sure some homeowners would just "send it." I'd rather be safe than sorry.

What Lou said. Look for a green screw on the new fixture. If you find one, that is where you attach the ground wire. Otherwise just connect the black and white wires. Is the existing ground an insulated wire that runs all the way back to the houses breaker box or just to the junction box the lamp mounts on? The latter is the usual way fixtures are grounded. I am assuming that your house has wires run in metal conduit. The metal conduit is used as the ground and somewhere there should be a wire running from the conduit or breaker box to the water pipe coming into your house.

If it's an all-plastic housing it may not have a ground connection. No point to grounding non-conductive material

Is the house ground wire attached to a metal bracket at the box? If so I would leave that as-is. If the light fixture only has a black and white wire then just connect that to the black and white wire in the box.

Just as an FYI, I have switched almost 100% to these Wago lever locks instead of wire nuts when doing any sort of wiring work. They are really good and IMO superior to nuts, have been used in Europe for a long time where wire nuts and twisting is not permitted:

Also SO much easier to connect when standing up on a ladder trying to do this kind fo work:



These are lever locking, NOT the push in type which I do not like

If you have a light fixture that lacks a ground it much be wired into a GFCI circuit. Typically this will be a sub circuit slave to a GFCI outlet. The reason for this is because some homes could have what used to be called a "floating Ground" meaning the Neutral (White) wire has a voltage present above or below a true Earth ground. Note, most floating grounds are caused by a device with a wiring fault and those devices can be a fire hazard because what you have is a high resistance short circuit to Neutral. So if you have a fridge in the basement connected with a circuit with a "floating" ground you could get a shock by grabbing that handle with your bare feet. What the GFCI circuit does is trip when it detects a "floating" ground and ALL GFCI outlets must have all 3 wires present and that green wire must be directly connected to a true earth ground at the main junction box. Note a True Earth ground is typically a 6 foot or longer copper rod driven in to the ground. With many codes a direct connection to an iron or copper incoming water pipe is an acceptable substitute for that solid copper rod.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:


If you have a light fixture that lacks a ground it much be wired into a GFCI circuit.

That is not true at all. Where are you seeing this?

Thanks to everyone so far that has contributed! These mixed responses are similar to what I found via Google, before I posted here.

I am leaning towards just the white to white and black to black then just capping the house ground and tucking it in. The new fixtures are all plastic and do not have a ground wire or screw to attach ground to. The comment about not having to ground an all plastic fixture makes sense to me.

The existing house wiring coming out of the box is a black wire, a white wire and a bare copper looking (ground?) solid wire. That wire is wire nutted to a slightly smaller twisted copper wire that is attached to the GND screw on the box, then continues on to be attached to the existing light fixture. My understanding is to remove the smaller copper wire (from current fixture to the wire nut) then tuck the solid copper wire with nut attached, back in the box, leaving just the black and white wires to attach to my new light fixture. Sounds correct to most of you?

Thanks again everyone!

quote:

Originally posted by BigJnSA:
Thanks to everyone so far that has contributed! These mixed responses are similar to what I found via Google, before I posted here.

I am leaning towards just the white to white and black to black then just capping the house ground and tucking it in. The new fixtures are all plastic and do not have a ground wire or screw to attach ground to. The comment about not having to ground an all plastic fixture makes sense to me.

The existing house wiring coming out of the box is a black wire, a white wire and a bare copper looking (ground?) solid wire. That wire is wire nutted to a slightly smaller twisted copper wire that is attached to the GND screw on the box, then continues on to be attached to the existing light fixture. My understanding is to remove the smaller copper wire (from current fixture to the wire nut) then tuck the solid copper wire with nut attached, back in the box, leaving just the black and white wires to attach to my new light fixture. Sounds correct to most of you?

Thanks again everyone!

If the junction box is metal, leave the ground attached to it.

If your new light fixture has any sort of metal strap, plate or bracket that attaches to the box first, put the ground from the house wiring on that. There should already be a screw on it for that purpose.

BIGJnSA, you are on the right track in your last post.

Scooter123 - we have an entirely different understanding of how a GFCI works.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
If it's an all-plastic housing it may not have a ground connection. No point to grounding non-conductive material

Here's your answer, if it's plastic and isolated there's no need for a ground.

Good news, even if it's a metal fixture it will be grounded anyways. You mentioned a ground screw which means you have a metal box that is grounded. The fixture screws will ground the fixture, while not a approved grounding method, it is effective as long as screws are tight.

quote:

Originally posted by sig operator:

....

Scooter123 - we have an entirely different understanding of how a GFCI works.

I couldn't make any sense of that post because it doesn't match with my experience with a quarter century of being an electrician.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by sig operator:

....

Scooter123 - we have an entirely different understanding of how a GFCI works.

I couldn't make any sense of that post ...

You're not alone

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by sig operator:

....

Scooter123 - we have an entirely different understanding of how a GFCI works.

I couldn't make any sense of that post because it doesn't match with my experience with a quarter century of being an electrician.

It sounds like he’s describing a MWBC that has lost its neutral, so you have a circuit with no reference to ground, and the voltages are determined by ohms’s law multiplying the current and resistance of the loads on that circuit.

Ok, I went back and read it again. I have no idea what he’s describing. Carry on…

I am not an electrician. I have a good friend that added an extension on his garage. He did all the work himself. Did not get a permit, did not hire an electrician. He had an electrical fire. Burned down the garage. Insurance company would not pay the claim. I worked in construction for many years. I can do a lot of things myself. But I always hire and pay an electrician for any thing I am not sure of.

47 years of being an electrician...
black to black
white to white
tuck the ground
beerthirty

UPDATE - I did swap all 3 lights. They all work, I didn't get electrocuted and all 3 work as they should. Thank you everyone for your input!

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:


If you have a light fixture that lacks a ground it much be wired into a GFCI circuit.

That is not true at all. Where are you seeing this?

It's a mix of Experience and Common Sense.

As for the experience I am the one who got jolted by grabbing the handle of the freezer in the basement. Note that was roughly 60 years ago and that Freezer got replaced after my Dad experienced the same jolt. So what happens in an electrical circuit when a device with a bad motor winding creates a "hot" neutral. Yeah that entire circuit will have a "hot" neutral and you could get a jolt by just plugging in a device with it's "case" grounded to neutral in a 2 wire connection. If you want an example of what may be in a modern home wired like this then take a close look at your grandfathers antique table lamp.

Common Sense is simple. What happens when you plug a device with a ground fault into a GFCI circuit. Yeah the GFCI trip and kills the power and it will keep doing this until you stop trying to plug in that defective device.

When it comes to Safety around electrical circuits I'm a belt and suspenders type of guy. Most electrical codes also take a belt and suspenders approach and I expect that if you take the time to really dig into those codes you will find notifications for these issues. While it's probably not in the typical handouts that get issued if you dig deeper you'll find a lot of things that are code violations that are not in those handouts.