0

We moved into a new house that only has an old NEMA 10-30 outlet for the clothes drier. I'm tempted to update it to a 14-30 by running a new ground from the subpanel.

We bought a drier and it came wired for 14-30. Conversely, I could just rewire the drier itself back to a 10-30 by using some kind of ground/chassis bonding, apparently.

I've done basic electrical but never tried to just run a 30A ground from the sub. If I went that route should I use 10 gauge NM? I don't even know if I could fish it from the sub to the outlet; I'm probably looking at cutting away drywall and then having to patch/replace (which I've never done before).

So if it were you, and you were trying to decide between the hassle involved in updating the outlet and messing with drywall, plus the effort of running a new 30A ground from the subpanel vs. rewiring the drier for the older 10-30, what would you do? I don't understand how dangerous it is to take a 14-30 drier and switch it back to 10-30. Any thoughts / suggestions?

r3cgm
  • 101
  • 1
  • 1
    hi and welcome. Please ask one question at a time – aaaaa says reinstate Monica Apr 14 '23 at 05:26
  • 1
    Can you find an easy path from the dryer outlet to a location on your house's grounding electrode system? – ThreePhaseEel Apr 14 '23 at 11:44
  • 1
    As seen in the duplicate, very often it's as easy as using the ground that's already there not connected, because the previous worker was a *!$@%##! idiot. So start by looking. – Ecnerwal Apr 14 '23 at 13:10
  • Thank you @Ecnerwal I checked and the previous worker didn't leave behind a ground wire to take advantage of. :( @ ThreePhaseEel thanks for that suggestion! It could be easier for me to do that than run a new ground out from the subpanel. I'll explore that option. – r3cgm Apr 14 '23 at 19:14

0 Answers0