How to hook 220 to 110 without a ground?

Question

My house was built back in the early 40's There were no grounds at the outlets. My electric stove is being replaced by a gas one. I want to keep this as simple as possible and use 2 of the 3 wires for hooking up the 120 to the same outlet visinity. Do i need to use the white wire as a ground back to the box and somehow use the two other hot leads. Do i need to do something at the power box etc. Hey thanks much. This is a great site.

Answer 1

This is not going to be possible. The breaker in your panel box will be a 30amp breaker, where as most household outlets are only 15amps. your best bet, but may not be cheap is to buy 14/2  wire, a 15amp circuit. Re-run the new wire from the panel box to where you want the new receptical and hook it up. It will be the safest way possible. If you hook up the new recepticle with the 30amp breaker, your recepticle will burn out, and possible cause a house fire.

Answer 2

Another thought to get where you want to be. Install a small subpanel at the current ends of the wires and then branch off with suitable breakers for new outlets or whatever.  

Answer 3

the existing wire is probably too big to hook up to a recep. but if it does hook up use one wire for hot and one for neutral. in the main box you will need to take the one your using for neutral and move it in the box for a ground

Answer 4

Well, you can make that work, but it's considered bad practice and it won't be up to most building codes.    

If you don't mind someone coming along later, finding the jury-rigged wiring and thinking bad thoughts about you, or if you don't mind the possibility of some kind of legal repercussions if something bad happens (remote, but not impossible), then go for it!  

Personally, I would pull a new wire, or at least pull a ground wire and stub off the unused red wire.      

Answer 5

Each lag is 120v, the white is the neutral, a grounded conductor, not a grounding conductor.  The white and one hot will produce 120v.  If you run a separate green wire back to the box, you can have one grounded circuit.  You probably should consider updating your total service and get a good 200 A service with breakers, et al.

Answer 6

Has your original service entrance panel been changed?

Are you familiar with, comfortable working behind a dead front panel?

Answer 7

Since you have 3 wires there you can make a regular 120 outlet work. Make the white wire the ground at both ends. Keep one hot wire for your 120 volts. And make the other wire the neutral at both ends. The neutral and ground connects at the same point in the panel. On your outlet connect the hot to the copper colored s***w, connect the nuetral to the silver colored s***w and connect the ground to the green colored s***w. In the panel connect your hot to a 15 amp breaker