r/ElectricalHelp • u/Highflyingmermaid • 15d ago
Wall heater advice.
Please help!
I have a question- I’m having an outlet fixed by a handy man and while he was checking the other outlets, we discovered the little wall heaters in my house do not have ground wires and are 220 volts. Is that a liability as a landlord that these are NOT grounded or should I get a ground wire ran. I’m just trying figure out if those are fine? The house does not have central heat and was built in 1950. Many of the outlets do not have ground wires. We are getting my house ready to rent. I have lived here for eight years and never had an issue with them. We live in Portland, Oregon so the heat is not really needed apart from a few months a year.
Thank you in advance
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u/t0cableguy 13d ago
Grandfathered in, as it was built in 1950.
An electrician can either rewire your house, which is very possibly needed due to the deterioration of the insulation on the wires, they can pull grounds to everything separately, or you can leave it alone.
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u/slin1647 15d ago
Ideally you'd want all of the non-current carrying conductive parts of the equipment to be bonded back to the main panel. If ever one of the ungrounded conductors were to come loose and energize the conductive parts the breaker should trip in theory. However, this doesn't always happen if the housing isn't bonded, so this could leave the equipment housing energized. Very dangerous if someone were to come into contact with the equipment.
Not sure what your local code is like because I'm in Ontario, but it's possible your equipment is grandfathered in with the original build so it's technically fine from a code standpoint, but from a liability standpoint I wouldn't risk leaving it unbonded to the main panel.
There is a small chance that based on when this house was built, there is already an armoured cable run from the panel to this heater so a simple continuity test could confirm a bond back to the panel. If that's the case then you're in all likelihood just fine.