How important is the grounding wire when installing a light?

Question

I am trying to install a light and I have the wiring down. The only problem is that the outlet box is inside the ceiling and does not seem to have a grounding wire coming out of it. Is there a way that I can recreate one? how would I go about doing that?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If at all possible you can ground it to the box if it is metal using a pigtail and a green grounding s***w.If not then you would have to run a seperate ground back to your loadcenter and that would be alot of work.If neither can be done don't worry about grounding it,no harm will come.

Answer 2

If the box is fed by flexduit then the box is ground.

Answer 3

As long as your house was built to code, that junction box should be grounded.  If not, I would just wire the ground the the junction box and dont worry about it.  

The Ground wire serves as a means for the flow of electricity to return to ground should anything ever happen to the neutral (white wire).  Its a means of protecting you should anything happen to the wiring well your handeling the light, tool, appliance etc.  Rather then going thru you, it will return using the ground.  

Its not nessesarry to have to allow the unit to work.  Just a safety measure.

Answer 4

that happened once with my husband, i'm pretty sure he just took some electrical tape and wraped and metal that was showing everywhere including the ground wire, then it worked.

Answer 5

Just attach a wire to the junction box.  Not necessary though, the light will work w/o it