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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Having recently bought a Dutch house built in 1989, it’s baffling to me that almost none of the outlets are earthed. You can use a schuko plug, but it will lack an earth connection and fall out easily.

Any Dutch people here able to say why that is?

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Because GFIs were not mandatory on all outlets back then and what exists is automatically grandfathered in when the rules change. Maybe in your meter box there are actually GFIs on all circuits, they just never put the grounded sockets in.

Look for green marked groups or groups with test buttons. Those are the ones that are the most safe to use.

But do check behind your sockets, there is a chance you may have the ground wires already pulled in and they just saved on the sockets.

I have the opposite problem here: I have all of my outlets on GFIs and there are ground wires everywhere. But the system is sensitive enough that I can't use my 10KA spotwelder because the phase lag is such that the system thinks there is a leak when there really isn't.

Thanks! I do have a GFCI (aka RCD) at the panel but the lack of grounding is unsettling. If nothing else the Schuko outlet is a lot better at preventing plugs from falling out.

I'll pull an outlet out and have a look for an Earth wire.

Yellow/Green. Sometimes they push them back a bit so it can be hard to spot. Another way to see it is to pull the front off the distribution panel, if you see Yellow/Green from a common rail going into every one of the outgoing tubes then you know it is at least wired up properly. If you only see blue and brown wires going into the tubes except for the ones to kitchen and bathroom then they won't be there. It is possible to pull in a ground wire afterwards but it is quite a bit of work, I've done it, the annoying bit is if there is a pull box that isn't exposed and they made a junction in there, then you have to break stuff to be able to reach the box.

Technically that's illegal but I doubt there is a house in NL that doesn't have at least one or two of those.

Old homes also often have been wired to use radiator/water pipes as ground. This causes a lot of issues now that old, metal pipes are being replaced with modern plastics, which turn a stupidly-grounded socket into a potential death trap.

Also, when there's a light circuit involved, there may be a black wire. In very old wiring situations, you may also encounter red/white/green wires, with green being the live wire rather than the ground!

That practice is highly illegal and reason for getting cut off from service.

Good point about the other color codes, I should have definitely mentioned that. There are three different kinds that you can find still, the white isn't white though, it is gray, and then, in even older houses but usually only in Groningen and Zeeland if they have not been renovated you can still find cotton/rubber insulation which is super dangerous. If you find any of the older systems codes you should basically just rip it all out and rewire.

There are GFIs that can deal with a welder, you will have to swap it at the panel.

Yes, I know, but thank you for the mention. The thing to look for is slow or fast response and maximum leakage current. In industrial settings those are used all the time for slow starting motors and other heavy consumers. The reason I didn't do it is because I only had to make a couple of welds and a triple breaker is 150,- euros or so, so I had to redo a bunch of welds and I didn't have to wait 24 hours to get it.

But if this was a regular thing then I would definitely replace the breaker.

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