Two-prong outlets don’t have a grounding wire

Most new appli­ances and elec­tron­ics come with three-prong plugs. If your old­er house is equipped only with two-prong recep­ta­cles, you’re prob­a­bly using adapters with three-prong holes and two-prong plugs.

That will let you fit your plug into the out­let, but it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly safe. A bet­ter solu­tion is to replace your two-prong recep­ta­cles with three- prong mod­els.

When you buy the replace­ment recep­ta­cles, choose mod­els that include a ground fault cir­cuit inter­rupter (GFCI). This will serve as a sort of “imi­ta­tion” ground and can great­ly elim­i­nate the chance of an elec­tric shock.

It’s a good idea to use GFCI recep­ta­cles wher­ev­er you replace two- prong out­lets in your house, but it’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant in the kitchen, bath­room, laun­dry room and garage, where you use water and elec­tric­i­ty in the same room.

An electrical outlet is pictured