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I am backfitting a dryer with a 3-prong plug. The manual says to connect the body to the neutral terminal using a copper ground strap.
I don't have a ground strap and none of the stores around carry them.
Is it safe to use a 10-gauge solid copper wire in place of the ground strap?

Model #: GE DCVH515EF0WW

The negative terminal is about 2 inches away from the grounding screw on the dryer body. I folded a 4-inch, bare, 10-gauge, solid copper wire into a long U. I fitted the U around the grounding screw and put the tips of the U under the screw at the negative terminal. This results in two 10-gauge segments that can carry current from the body to ground.

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reynoldsnlp
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2 Answers2

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That should work fine. Most dryers have a tiny 16-14 AWG bonding wire.

The only problem I can think of, is not making a good neutral connection to the dryer. However, since it looks like you have crimp terminals on the ends of the supply wires, you shouldn't have this problem.

Tester101
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All due respect to Tester101, I'm not a fan of this method for a couple of reasons.

Not a listed method

And that matters because a failure here is lethal. A lost neutral is precisely the failure that spooks us and is why NEMA 10 is considered bad news.

A break in a neutral wire will cause (internal to the appliance) the neutral to be "pulled up" to one of the hots. That is normal in any appliance. The problem is, by booting ground to neutral, the chassis of the machine is now hot. That problem is doubled because the washing machine right next to it is still properly grounded. Touch both, you die.

This is literally bootlegging ground. It is illegal in almost every context, (except this context, only due to lobbying by appliance manufacturers.)

You might as well do the best thing

Instead of running the grounding wire 2 inches to the neutral lug, you could run it 20 feet... to a proper grounding point.

OK, The right right way is to retrofit a ground: run it to the receptacle, change the receptacle for NEMA 14 and use that to support a NEMA 14 receptacle and plug.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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