Greeting EEVBees:
--Herein pends a long tale of woe, with an eventual happy ending.
--My neighborhood is composed of 1950s houses. Many have original 2 wire runs from the breaker box to the sockets. My neighbor's house had 2 wire cable running to the sockets, but of course some jake leg had hooked up 3 pin sockets to the 2 wire cable and left the ground unconnected. This is a very common practice in my neighborhood, and is probably endemic in similar situations in the US.
--My neighbor, Mike, was having a lot of trouble with his BrightHouse internet connection going intermittent at odd intervals. I had him get a good UPS and hooked it up for him. When I hooked up the UPS I noticed that the "No Ground" light was lit up. I checked the socket, and "Bobs your uncle" there was no ground. I did notice however that if I ran the BrightHouse cable through the UPS it would pick up the ground from the BrightHouse cable. Parenthetically, I should add that both Mike and I were in the Poor House at the time, so calling a licensed electrician was out of the question. Problem solved??
--It turns out that although his computer, router, etc. was now protected from spikes and short term outages, the internet connection was still fritzy.
--Mike would call, and the cable guy would come out and say; "Well there's your problem, you have the cable run through the UPS. That interferes with our signal." I pointed out to the BH man that the problem predated the installation of the UPS and that I had been running an identical setup at my house for two years with no problems. Needless to say, my statement had no effect on the BH man. He disconnected the UPS, pronounced the problem solved and left, mumbling and shaking his head at the stupidity of customers.
--Surprisingly, the intermittent outages continued, and Mike would re-engage the UPS, call BH and the whole scenario would repeat ad nauseum. But now a new factor was introduced. SWMBO decreed a move of the system to a new location, which required putting the old HP computer on the concrete floor. Now when the BH man disconnected the UPS, the old HP computer case (with bare metal on the bottom of the case and no rubber pads), went to floating intermittent ground, and as a result a spike somewhere in the system caused the microprocessor to go NFW.
--BH at first promised to recompense Mike for his computer, but upon review by a higher manager decided to disallow his claim because of "use of unrecommended equipment" which, oddly enough was not being used at the time. We soon gave up trying to penetrate the thorny BH hedgerow. SWMBO summoned "virtual money" out of the ether, and a cheap reconditioned computer was procured.
--Upon being informed of these events, I proclaimed "FT". We then managed ,"hook or crook", to obtain green coated grounding wire, green wire nuts, grounding clamps, and ground pegs. I then proceeded to connect all grounds to each other every which way. On the inside walls I found an unconnected ground wire, "Bob's your uncle". The outside walls were original and there was no ground wire. So, I used a 1 foot drill bit to bull my way through the metal box and on through to the outside of the walls.
--I then proceeded to interconnect all ground wires to the Progress Energy ground wire, the copper water pipes, and the ground pegs in a bewildering array. The network was so complex that no jake leg, shade tree electrician, or BH man would ever be able to figure out how to defeat it, let alone doing the work involved.
--The end result had been that Mike has had no electrical failures whatsoever in two and half years. His "state of the art" washing machine, which used to require replacement of the microprocessor twice a year, now has no problems.
--One would think the "maintenance contract" guys would check for ground, but apparently they work like government employees, and regard underlying problems as allies.
--One of my other neighbors "Jesus", pronounced "Hey Zeus" as if one were addressing the "Father of Gods", has the same two wire cable to 3 pin sockets setup, I.E. no ground. In Jesus' case I installed a common UPS and ran the cable through it, obtaining a "jury rigged ground" Result? No problems whatsoever in the past two years.
--After a suitable time for responses, I plan to forward this entire thread (redacted of names, identities and so forth) to the CEOs of BH and several UPS manufacturers.
--I invite and welcome your comments. I particularly would like to hear stories of similar problems. Contraian remarks are always welcome, but I would prefer concrete assertions rather than derision and sarcasm. I freely admit I have been feeling in the dark, and trying in my humble way to follow what I have been told in this respected forum. Best Regards
Clear Ether