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Hello, I've come to the conclusion after many years of testing that self grounding outlets ruin your games. Here's the cavait. The self grounding outlet should only be used when you have a METAL electrical box. I live in the west coast of canada, fairly new townhouse build. Every single outlet in the livng areas has a PLASTIC BOX. But there are self grounding outlets. I changed them all to regular grounding which is cheaper and no more heavy mouse

chipotlechicken wrote: ↑

02 Aug 2026, 03:52

Hello, I've come to the conclusion after many years of testing that self grounding outlets ruin your games. Here's the cavait. The self grounding outlet should only be used when you have a METAL electrical box. I live in the west coast of canada, fairly new townhouse build. Every single outlet in the livng areas has a PLASTIC BOX. But there are self grounding outlets. I changed them all to regular grounding which is cheaper and no more heavy mouse

WHAT DO U MEAN U switched to regular grounding can please explain ! for example me i dont have grounding at my room so i did a dedicated rode to my room outlet i did ground the outlet running a wire from the ground to the outlet ! but still no improvement

Here are two different outlets. Regular and self grounding.

This one is regular: https://leviton.com/products/t5325-w

This one is self grounding: https://leviton.com/products/16252-w

The self grouding one has a copper plate on one of the ends, thats how you know its self grounding. That little plate connects to a METAL box and works as grounding.

The issue is when you're using these self grounding outlets in a PLASTIC BOX.

I don't know how you came to that conclusion. The installation is electrically the same between these outlet types when installed in a plastic box. Black wire to gold screw. White wire to silver screw. Green/Bare wire to green screw. If there's no ground wire, both won't be grounded.

The non self grounded outlets might cause issues if installed in a metal box without a ground wire, because it then won't have a working ground. Technically by code, you can use the metal conduit and metal box as your ground, and only run 2 wires (hot and neutral) to the outlet.I recommend running a separate ground wire to avoid grounding issues. It's also required by some local building code.