I finally found out why my 50 year old house has no ground wires

Got tired of my lights flickering whenever I turned on a space heater. Decided to trace the wiring back and found every outlet in my living room is on two wire ungrounded circuits. Looked it up on the city code website and apparently houses built in Albuquerque before 1965 didn't require ground wires at all. Has anyone else had to deal with retrofitting grounds in an older ABQ home?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahhall15d ago

Honestly, I used to think skipping the ground wire was super sketchy and just a sign of lazy work. Then I bought a 60s house in Santa Fe and found the same thing - no grounds anywhere. That changed my mind real quick, turns out it was totally standard for the time. Ended up just putting in GFCI breakers on those circuits instead of rewiring everything, which was way cheaper and still up to code.

webb.victor15d ago

Bought a 1963 place in Nob Hill, exact same deal with no grounds on half the house.