What's the easiest and inexpensive way to detect if a socket has proper earthing?

Ssreek

Ssreek

Adept
We are moving into a different house and there are many electrical sockets here. What is the easiest and economical way to detect if a particular socket has earthing connected or not?

In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.

One way is, to hire an electrician and make him open each panel and check the wiring, but they will charge a bomb and also, panels might get loose once opened and refitted.

There are some videos in youtube where people put a wire and bulb or smthg and it seems little scary to do without electrical knowledge.

Any suggestions?
 
Ssreek said:
In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.
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Hard to believe.

Earthing's purpose is to protect humans from electrical shocks. How does a TV go bad because of lack of earthing? I have so many appliances in my house (including comp monitors) that use a two pin plug.
 
dpandey said:
Hard to believe.

Earthing's purpose is to protect humans from electrical shocks. How does a TV go bad because of lack of earthing? I have so many appliances in my house (including comp monitors) that use a two pin plug.
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That's what they have said. It happened during rainy season where we get surges and our transformer too is faulty and fails often.
That same month, one of my routers have gone bad and phone charger got melted during a rain and power cut.
 
Earth plug is connected to the outer metal casing of appliances so that if a live wire touches the case on the inside, people won't receive a shock when they touch the case from the outside. Instead, the alternating current goes into the path of least resistance via the earth plug.

DC appliances like router will have only a 2 wire input, so earthing is out of the question.

Considering the no. of devices you've lost, you need to use surge protectors or a home inverter that switches to battery when input power is not stable.

Until then, I'd suggest you turn off the circuit breakers whenever there's rains to protect your devices.
 
Easiest and cheapest solution:

Please recommend some Earthing test tools

Something that I can buy online or in a store easily. Using a 45w bulb and connector/ wiring seems like more work.
techenclave.com techenclave.com

Ssreek said:
In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.
Click to expand...
Ok, that is wrong on many levels. As far as I have seen, TVs come with 2 pin plug. Earthing is irrelevant for these TVs. I think your neighbor wanted to blame something, so he blamed the earthing.
Ssreek said:
That's what they have said. It happened during rainy season where we get surges and our transformer too is faulty and fails often.
That same month, one of my routers have gone bad and phone charger got melted during a rain and power cut.
Click to expand...
Surge =/= regular low or high voltage fluctuations.

Get a home protector.
 
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dpandey said:
Earthing is not going to protect the equipment from surges.
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Sorry, I meant voltage fluctuations.


lockhrt999 said:
Easiest and cheapest solution:

Please recommend some Earthing test tools

Something that I can buy online or in a store easily. Using a 45w bulb and connector/ wiring seems like more work.
techenclave.com techenclave.com


Ok, that is wrong on many levels. As far as I have seen, TVs come with 2 pin plug. Earthing is irrelevant for these TVs. I think your neighbor wanted to blame something, so he blamed the earthing.

Surge =/= regular low or high voltage fluctuations.

Get a home protector.
Click to expand...
Out tv too has only 2 pin plug. I connected it through a vguard stabilizer and it is working fine for us.

Let's say there is no earthing connected in a particular socket in home. If I connect a voltage stabilizer to that socket, will the devices plugged to the stabilizer be safe from voltage fluctuations or surges? I am guessing the stabilizer will die or blow its fuse to protect the devices.

Emperor said:
available for Rs.150/- in local market, great choice

@Ssreek , you need to install heavy/good quality Surge Protector or Voltage Regulator/Stabilizer, as if there is fluctuation in power/current, than may be all of electric equipment's in your house in in danger zone, except those who have inbuilt stabilizers.
Click to expand...
In this case, as an example, do you mean those belkin extension boards and v guard stabilizers?

------------------
After all your suggestions, I have ordered the mx fault line detector. It arrived today evening. I will test it tomorrow.
 
Ssreek said:
Sorry, I meant voltage fluctuations.
Click to expand...
Ssreek said:
Let's say there is no earthing connected in a particular socket in home. If I connect a voltage stabilizer to that socket, will the devices plugged to the stabilizer be safe from voltage fluctuations or surges? I am guessing the stabilizer will die or blow its fuse to protect the devices.
Click to expand...
Mate, you are misinformed about earthing. It's not a magical solution that supposed to protect against voltage fluctuation or surges. These things are not even remotely related.

The whole and sole function of earthing is to stop the users of appliances getting shocked when they touch a metal surface of that appliance. [bonus point: it also stops those electric components going kaput who operate on different grid. Like HDD which operates on the grid of 12V DC]

Earthing is nothing but just another Neutral line. The only differences between them are,
  1. The Earthing line is connected to parts which shouldn't be getting any electricity. And, it's grounded at your home.
  2. Neutral line is connected to parts which are supposed to be getting electricity. And it's grounded at the local distribution center.

Coming back to your original point, protecting equipment against voltage fluctuations. I'll quote my own post from last year:

  1. If you guys suffer from power fluctuation then get a home protector like this > https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07VHGC21M
  2. It'll protect you against low voltage, high voltage, and intermittent fluctuations with delayed recovery. The one I have shared is Chinese, fits right into your MCB, is configurable, and has advanced settings. You can also find Indian-made protectors. Those are bulky though and non-configurable.
  3. If you spend more money you can have protectors with leakage protection means it'll stop you from getting electrocuted. Like > https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0BWRGTLJ7 [This one works for equipements with 2 pin plugs appliances as well.]
  4. If you spend even more money you can have surge protection too. Surge protection is to save your appliances against lightning striking your power lines. How many of you have suffered lighting ⚡?
  5. :writing: Your first priority is to get protection from High-low-intermittent-fluctuating voltage. Then you should think about getting leakage protection. The last priority should be surge protection.:writing:
  6. :oldman: Surge/spike Protector does absolutely nothing for power fluctuations. And instead of getting one for your computer alone, you should have one for your whole house. Like > https://www.amazon.in/Single-Phase-Surge-Protection-Device/dp/B0CKXBYX7N (this is a stand-alone surge protector)
  7. BTW, such protectors are also made by reputed brands like Schnider or Legrand but I couldn't find their links.
 
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