[ale] OT: Running computers in an older home (read older circuitry)

John Wells jb at devsea.com
Thu Feb 19 11:40:18 EST 2004


Guys,

My wife and I have found a house here in Greensboro we really like, but I have a few concerns.  The house is approx. 54 years old, with an addition on the back that's approx. 15-20 years old.  The addition has grounded, three prong outlets, but the front portion of the house, where my "office" would be, have the older two pronged, non-grounded outlets.

On a given day, I run a 120 mhz firewall/router, a 900 mhz Athlon, a 2200XP+ Athlon (1800mhz) with a lot of components, and a 2.0 Ghz laptop pretty much 24/7.

What are the concerns with going into a house like this with my power usage?  I do know that it's on a circuit breaker system...not fuse box.  And I plan on having an electrician come in a replace one outlet with a grounded, dedicated circuit so my computers will all plug into this outlet.

Anything I'm missing or not considering?  I've never purchased a home with old wiring so I'm a little wary, but we're probably putting an offer in today.  I know that grounding all outlets in the house will probably be pretty darned expensive, so if I don't have to, I don't want to!

Let me know asap if you have any comments/suggestions.  Thanks guys!

John



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