🚀 go-pugleaf

>>MY QUESTION is, if you don't have 3-wire connections in your house, why
>>can't you connect the white wire to the ground lug and conuit/boxes, etc???

If you did this, and the neutral wire failed open for any reason, all of the
metal parts of 3-prong appliances would become live, not to mention the
outlet boxes, etc.  Painful.  Possibly FATAL.

I once lived in an old farmhouse.  If you've never seen farmhouse wiring,
you don't know what funky wiring means.  Farmers are the original do-it-
yourselfers; they never hire anyone to do anything they can possibly do
themselves.  Splices without enclosing boxes, for example, are common.

Well, one day I finished up the dishes, pulled the chain to shut off the
light, and reached for the faucet to turn off the water.  YOW!!!!!  Hmmm...
light bulb connected between chain & faucet glows to full brightness...
I was lucky to be alive.  After considerable prowling, I found that the whole
kitchen & dining room was wired with romex with a grounding wire.  This romex
was fed from some romex without a grounding wire.  So the grounds
were all connected together, and left floating.  Then, in TWO SEPARATE outlet
boxes, there was a short from the hot to the ground (accidental, not wired
that way).  So *every* outlet box and grounding prong was live.

Steve Gaarder
gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu
...!cornell!batcomputer!gaarder