Quoted from YeOldPinPlayer:Vid, I was with my new home inspector today and watched him test a GFCI outlet that was ungrounded. It didn’t trip. I’m assuming the button on his tester made a connection between the hot and ground.
Was it just an old GFCI that doesn’t function like newer ones? This house I’m looking at has no ground wire at the outlets (built in 1959). I presume the 3 prong outlets and GFCI were added later.
Will be interesting to hear my electrician’s quote for fixing that issue.
the ultimate fix is rewire the entire house to get ground wire everywhere, we recently did our 1948 house for the same reason. There is a provision for using a gfci outlet to add a 3 prong outlet on systems with no ground wire, not sure on details, but the supposedly the testers do not work on them. more protection then just wiring a 3 prong outlet to 2 wires, but less than if you have ground.