Well, I have been involved in a discussion in a local forum and surprisingly, many people don’t understand about grounding. It will take a long paper to discuss about grounding and you can find on Google. I just will write short article about how to test whether you have ground or not on your wall outlet.

Check picture below.

You can use a AC Volt Meter with capability beyond the measured Voltage (I use 220 Volt in my country, so I set the AC Volt Meter to 750 Volt). Sorry I made mistake on the picture, it should be “Neutral” instead of “Netral”. I’m too lazy to edit it 😉

Basically, every wall outlet will have 3 wires (if yours is only 2 wires, it means that you have no Ground):

  • One is Hot
  • One is Neutral
  • One (or Two) is Ground

Note: The Hot and Neutral sometime accidentally reversed on the installation process of the wall outlet. There is no direct impact since this is AC (Alternating Current) not DC (Direct Current). But if sometime you get electric shock when touching metal enclosure of your PC or similar electronic device, then you can try to reverse the power plug direction between your Hot and Neutral. You can search on the Google about the correct position of this Hot and Neutral connector. I won’t provide it here because many countries use different wall outlet. So search for yours out there.

Now, test the wall outlet as described below with AC Volt Meter:

  • Hot and Neutral -> You should get some reading around 220 Volt (or 110 Volt depends on your country).
  • Hot and Ground -> Also you should get some reading either 100-220 Volt.
  • Neutral and Ground -> Should be nothing (0 Volt).

If you can’t get any reading between Hot and Ground (or Neutral with Ground on the accidentally reversed connectors) then you should consider to check your home grounding. Prefer to call a good electrician if you don’t know what you are doing! Remember you are playing with a high voltage that can cause a serious injury or death! Don’t play a mess with it!

Another cheap trick: You can also replace the AC Volt Meter with a light bulb. Make sure Hot and Ground can light the bulb (beside the Hot and Neutral of course), otherwise it means that you don’t have the ground on your wall outlet.