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Why were the ground wires in my light boxes either cut off or tucked away unused?

Home Improvement Asked by stainedrug on May 20, 2021

I live in a home built in 2006 in Delaware. There are a mixture of plastic and metal boxes for light fixtures throughout the house. I am in the process of replacing builder grade lights with better finishes.

Every single box I come to the ground wire for the fixture has been snipped to the base, and the ground wire from the cable is either curled up in the box or snipped back to the sheath cut. The metal boxes have ground screws with nothing attached to them, Is there a reason for this or is it just bad work / laziness? It literally takes 30 seconds to connect the two wires much shorter time than tucking and trimming them in my opinion.

I am by no means an electrician, just looking for some education on this subject. I only ask because the plumbing work done here was also shoddy, missing putty, unglued joints, overflow on tub not connected… a real winner lol. Thanks in advance!

2 Answers

You hit it with lazy. Code requires metal fixtures to be grounded so not doing this is both lazy and a code violation. I don’t understand why some snip unused grounds for plastic fixtures possibly lazy again because it is faster to snip than tuck it back in the box. I always tuck them in the box if not used but I have found many that snip.

Correct answer by Ed Beal on May 20, 2021

When making repairs in old houses with two prong receptacles and no equipment ground, it's not unusual to use new cable and clip the grounds as short as possible at both ends. I have done it myself, the idea is you don't want someone to see that ground wire, assume it's good, and install a three prong receptacle.

If someone saw that done without understanding the reasoning, they might get confused and think it's OK or standard procedure, and do it in new wiring. I can't tell you how that could happen in a house built and presumably inspected in 2006. I'd be wondering what else is wrong...

Answered by batsplatsterson on May 20, 2021

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