Older structures didn't have grounded outlets. Many installs used metallic conduit which was retrofitted as a ground. Most places, including old apartment complexes, replaced the old two-prong outlets with grounded outlets without grounding them. They did this in most cases because of the complaints from tenants when they could plug in their grounded-cord appliances. This is more common than you might think. It's technically against code, but not something that generally requires an inspection. You're not likely to see the landlord replace the wiring with THHN or romex due to the high cost of labor and materials. ----- Eric F Crist On Jan 4, 2013, at 10:37:26, Ryan Coleman <ryanjcole at me.com> wrote: > This is a really easy test - it allowed me to discover that NONE of the "grounded" outlets in my apartment were, indeed, grounded... which is fine except for the fact that my UPS must have a ground... The landlord - upon learning of this problem - has agreed to get an outlet in each room properly grounded... he doesn't want to deal with my insurance company when I claim the explosion of battery acid from my UPS after a lightning strike (a little over dramatic, I admit, but I was amazed to find that out of 20 wall outlets 0 were actually grounded - and 15 of the plug pairs had a grounding pin... and a few of the outlets are still the cloth insulated wire...) > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list