Thank you for the assurance. I was told that the ground connected to neutral would provide a path back to the breaker but was a safety hazard due to what you mention.
I was hoping someone knew of a test for a bootleg ground that I could manage myself. I understand noone wants me hurt, and curiosity and electricity don’t match. Thinking about it just now after reading your post, would it be possible and safe to:
- modify a 3 pronged stranded cable extension cord so that it did not have a neutral prong
- switch the ground to the neutral
- hook it up to a lamp
- check to see if the lamp turns on
In theory, a properly grounded outlet would not work. However, if the ground was connected to the neutral, it should complete the circuit.
Since this is just a brainstorm, 2 concerns come to mind:
-
I’ve already seen outlets wired with reverse polarity and so I would need to check for that for the test to be valid (the 3 pronged outlets are easy to get to/ no painted over)
-
Does hooking a lamp up with only the hot and ground pose a risk or would the circuit breaker trip in this case?
If this test sounds valid, it would give reason to have an electrician fix the issue (assuming that there are bootleg grounds where I can’t see if the the ground wire has been pigtailed with the neutral). Thank you.