That seems scary. Did you take it apart? How do you know there isn't a hot conductor running behind the ground prong for one of the other sockets? If there is you can cause a dangerous short and cause a fire. I highly recommend NO ONE EVER DO THIS. It is potentially VERY unsafe and not worth it to save a few minutes over mounting it properly.
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A little.
I've taken one cheap strip apart a long time ago. It had the hot running down one side, the neutral running down the other, and ground was down the middle.
Hence my concern that ground would be interrupted.
But you're right - I am assuming that this strip is put together like the one I took apart. Any other arrangement of the conductors could have a bad outcome!
Edit:
Found images to show what I meant:
I did not check to see if the other ground conductors are broken- It doesn't matter in this case since the main cord feeding the power strip has the 3rd prong broken off anyway! Ha! LOL.
As you can tell.. I am not too impressed by those who worry lots about the ground line. :). As Adam Corolla would say- this product can only be purchased at the adult store- :).
Now to be just a bit more serious... many many many items don't have ground's in the cords... like the battery chargers I plug into this strip. Many that do have grounds also make use of double insulated bodies etc... or other protections against an errant hot wire. I am not going to get into a debate about this- I know what I am doing... and I thought this would bring up a chuckle for some.
If you don't know what you are doing... obviously don't do this! LOL. Have a great rest of the weekend peeps. KV.
@JohnRob is correct on this... a missing ground is very unlikely to cause a fire. In fact, one can argue that using a GROUNDED outlet is MORE likely to start a fire than using one without a ground-- even though most likely the presence or absence of a ground wire is a minimal contributor to a fire in either case. The ground was added to protect people from an errant hot wire... That is why you can get away with 2 prongs on so many devices... they have other protections in place (like double insulation etc).
I don't know why I am stoking this fire though... no pun intended :). Just killing time I guess. :). I think people should think this stuff through though rather than just panic if a ground wire is not present.
That’s not what would cause a fire. If he accidentally drilled that screw through the insulation of a hot wire it could lead to an arc which very much can start a fire.
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I agree on that.
FYI they use keyholes specifically because they are not UL listed for permanent installation.
I have always used the method here Use Masking Tape When Wall-Mounting Hardware to Perfectly Align Screw Holes | WIRED
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Very interesting. thanks for the info!!
