How Does A Ground Wire Work?

Using electricity as a source of energy is probably one of the most important things people have ever done. Even though electricity can be dangerous if it is used wrong, Residential electrician greenwood have built several fail-safes into the domestic electrical grid that will keep your home and property safe from electrical shocks and fires that could kill you. The most common of these safety measures is a grounding wire, which has been required by residential electrical codes since the 1960s. 

How does a ground wire work? 

Electricity is predictable at its core; positively charged electricity always looks for the quickest way to get to the negatively charged ground. Electrical pulses in a home's grid also move along the fastest path to the Earth, but electrical engineers have long since figured out how to change that path to use the electricity to power our homes. But electrical grids often have surges and arcs that cause extra electricity to try to find a new way to get to the ground. This is where a ground wire comes in. Its job is to give excess electricity a safe and effective way to get to the ground. 

How Many Kinds of Ground Wires Are There? 

Since a ground wire's job is to safely send excess energy to the ground, they are almost always made of highly conductive copper wire that is wrapped in green and yellow plastic for easy installation. The colour of the ground wire, which is green with a yellow stripe, is almost always used to tell it apart from the other wires. Ground wires can be different in a few ways depending on the needs of the electrical grid they are grounding. Here are a few examples of different ground wires. 

Bare Copper: Bare copper is the most common type of ground wire in homes. Since it is not insulated, it is the best conductor. 

Green 6 THHN: This ground wire is mostly used in outdoor electrical outlets and is protected from the weather. 

Gauged Copper: Gauged copper comes in different sizes, which lets bigger surges pass through the ground wire easily if they need to.  

Why does your circuit breaker "trip," and how do you put it back in place? 

The purpose of a circuit breaker in an electric grid is to keep your home or property safe. It not only lets you turn off the whole electrical circuit or just a part of it, but it also acts as a fail-safe for your electrical grid by turning off, or "tripping," in the event of a system overload or electrical surge. This protects your home or property from electrical fires or damage. Some of the things that can cause the circuit breakers in your home to trip are: 

  • Overloads–Electrical overloads happen when a circuit's energy demand is higher than what it can provide. This can happen, for example, if you plug too many things into one outlet. 

  • Short circuits happen when a charged, or "live," wire touches a neutral, or "dead," wire, which shouldn't happen. This can cause dangerous surges in an electrical system, which is why the circuit breaker is there to break the connection. 

  • Similar to a short circuit, a ground fault surge happens when a live wire touches a ground wire, causing a surge and a breaker to trip. 

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