Small Ground

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masterinbama

masterinbama

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Huntsville Alabama
Since Huntsville has been shut down due to snow all week I have been getting some Honey dos done. I had changed all of the kitchen outlets out last year and the romex had a full size ground. Yesterday I found that all of the bedrooms and bathroom have the smaller ground. To top it off the lighting has no ground at all. I know when the house was built my question is was copper at such a premium in 1960 or 1961 that you could warrant three different types of wire on one job?


PS please excuse my rambling posts I haven't been able to get out too much this week.
 
Almost 100% sure it is. All of the romex is exposed where it enters the panel and the sheath is all the same and marked with the same manufacturer. I do know that in the early 1960's Huntsville was growing rapidly, due to the formation of NASA and the Marshal Space Flight Center.
 
If the place was built in 1960, you're lucky any of the circuits have grounds at all.

In the early 60's the practice was to use a ground wire that was smaller than the circuit conductors, and it wasn't always part of the cable, or terminated at the device. I've seen places with a bare #16 running in the walls, jumping from box to box, simply woven around a fitting ot looped through those little box holes. I've also seen Romex with undersized grounds.

FWIW, the price of copper didn't become enough of an issue, so as to spur the use of aluminum wire, until about 1969. The cause was simple: the government was making lots of bullets for 'export' to Vietnam. Copper prices dropped by 1972, as we ended our activities there.
 
I was working at a local hardware store in my high school years. When I started there the NM had an EGC that was smaller than the circuit conductors. The code changed to require a full size EGC somewhere around 1966.
 
Being very few things actually even use a ground anymore i would not worry much about it. Have seen some burned open but will assume was result of over fused or too many dead shorts. Your wiring is almost 50 years old and might be smart to slowly rewire. If it helps i will pray you get more snow so you will have time to do this.
 
I've worked in houses that mixed grounding and non-grounding even on the same circuit. For example, NM W/G from the panel to the bathroom over-the-sink fixture and the switch, then to non/G for the rest of the circuit.
 
my understanding is that huntsville is supposed to be open up by monday. is this true?

we have a job about 30 min north of there, and planned on having a crew go back up monday. they dang near got snowed in friday before yesterday, but made it out just before the roads were closed.
 
brantmacga said:
my understanding is that huntsville is supposed to be open up by monday. is this true?

we have a job about 30 min north of there, and planned on having a crew go back up monday. they dang near got snowed in friday before yesterday, but made it out just before the roads were closed.
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All roads are open except for a few back roads. They should be fine by the end of today (Sunday).
 
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