What's the easiest and inexpensive way to detect if a socket has proper earthing?

Ssreek

Adept
We are moving into a different house and there are many electrical sockets here. What is the easiest and economical way to detect if a particular socket has earthing connected or not?

In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.

One way is, to hire an electrician and make him open each panel and check the wiring, but they will charge a bomb and also, panels might get loose once opened and refitted.

There are some videos in youtube where people put a wire and bulb or smthg and it seems little scary to do without electrical knowledge.

Any suggestions?
 
In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.
Hard to believe.

Earthing's purpose is to protect humans from electrical shocks. How does a TV go bad because of lack of earthing? I have so many appliances in my house (including comp monitors) that use a two pin plug.
 
Hard to believe.

Earthing's purpose is to protect humans from electrical shocks. How does a TV go bad because of lack of earthing? I have so many appliances in my house (including comp monitors) that use a two pin plug.
That's what they have said. It happened during rainy season where we get surges and our transformer too is faulty and fails often.
That same month, one of my routers have gone bad and phone charger got melted during a rain and power cut.
 
Earth plug is connected to the outer metal casing of appliances so that if a live wire touches the case on the inside, people won't receive a shock when they touch the case from the outside. Instead, the alternating current goes into the path of least resistance via the earth plug.

DC appliances like router will have only a 2 wire input, so earthing is out of the question.

Considering the no. of devices you've lost, you need to use surge protectors or a home inverter that switches to battery when input power is not stable.

Until then, I'd suggest you turn off the circuit breakers whenever there's rains to protect your devices.
 
Easiest and cheapest solution:

In our previous flat, one of my neighbors didn't check earthing and connected his tv to a socket which has no earthing connected and his tv went kaput. I would like to avoid such situation.
Ok, that is wrong on many levels. As far as I have seen, TVs come with 2 pin plug. Earthing is irrelevant for these TVs. I think your neighbor wanted to blame something, so he blamed the earthing.
That's what they have said. It happened during rainy season where we get surges and our transformer too is faulty and fails often.
That same month, one of my routers have gone bad and phone charger got melted during a rain and power cut.
Surge =/= regular low or high voltage fluctuations.

Get a home protector.
 
Last edited:
Mx Ac Line Fault Detector - Mx 1177 https://amzn.in/d/7nquja4
available for Rs.150/- in local market, great choice

@Ssreek , you need to install heavy/good quality Surge Protector or Voltage Regulator/Stabilizer, as if there is fluctuation in power/current, than may be all of electric equipment's in your house in in danger zone, except those who have inbuilt stabilizers.