Is It Safe to Plug a Grounding Sheet Into a Wall Outlet?

A grounding cord connects to the earth contact of a wall socket and to nothing else — the live and neutral contacts, which carry the current that runs appliances, are not connected to the cord at all. The cord carries a built-in ≈91 kΩ ±1% current-limiting safety resistor. Before the first use, check that the socket is actually earthed with a plug-in tester.

The earth contact is not part of the circuit that powers anything

This is the sentence that answers most of the worry. A socket has three contacts. Two of them — live and neutral — form the circuit that runs a lamp or a kettle. The third is the earth contact, and in normal operation it carries nothing at all.

It is there as a protective path: if a fault inside an appliance puts voltage somewhere it should not be, the earth gives that current a route back through the installation rather than through whoever is holding the appliance.

A grounding adapter is shaped to meet that third contact only. There is no path from live or neutral into the cord.

What does the resistor actually do?

Every cord we sell has a built-in ≈91 kΩ ±1% current-limiting safety resistor. It sits in the line between the fabric and the socket.

We state the value and the tolerance rather than describing an outcome, and we would encourage you to compare that figure between sellers. A seller who will not give you a number for it is worth a second question.

What we will not do is make an absolute claim about anything plugged into a wall. We can tell you precisely which contact is used and precisely what is in the cord, which is the useful half of the answer.

How do you check that your own socket is actually earthed?

With a plug-in socket tester, matched to your country’s socket type.

1. Buy the tester that fits your sockets — the shapes are national, and we stock testers for Europe, the UK, North America, Denmark, India, South Africa, Israel, Australasia and Switzerland. For the United States or Canada the FAQ sets out which adapter and tester apply: Does it work with US or Canadian outlets?
2. Plug it into the socket you actually intend to use.
3. Read the lamp pattern against the legend printed on the tester itself.
4. Act on what it says, including stopping if it reports a fault.

Two honest limits. It is a wiring check rather than a measurement, so it reports a pattern rather than a quality. And it cannot see an earth bonded to neutral at the outlet — that fault reads as correct wiring, which is one reason a doubt about an old installation belongs with an electrician.

What if your home does not have an earthed socket?

Then do not improvise. The options are a different room, or an electrician.

Reaching a better socket with a longer cord is reasonable — ours are 4.6 m (15 ft) straight, or coiled from about 1.8 m out to 6 m (20 ft). Running a cord to something that is not an earthed socket is not.

If you are in a building where the sockets are older than the wiring regulations you can name, that is the situation a professional is for. It costs an hour of someone’s time and settles the question for every appliance in the room, not just ours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Simply Grounded.

Still have a question? Read the FAQ