I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets. I'm in a newly constructed house, and
that's the case here. I started looking around, and indeed, they had
never even put in a ground rod where the power comes into the house. I
found where the ground wire was sticking out through the the exterior
wall, but no rod. I went and bought a ground rod today, and I'll hook
that up tomorrow.

I had a construction guy in here yesterday, who told me that in cases
like this, people just run a ground to a portion of the house, like
the metal door frames, or window frames. That sounds like a disaster
waiting to happen to me.

My question is this. Do I need to somehow ground to the same rod
outside where the power comes in, in order to prevent ground loops or
other problems? I can do that, it would just be a little ackward.

Another option would be to knock away the plaster, and tie into one of
the steel rods in a corner pillar. This is something else the
construction guy said is common.

Please advise as to what I should do. Any any response from me might
take a while, as I'm posting through Google.

Thanking you in advance,
Taylor

P.S. my e-mail address that I log in here with is no longer
functional. Any private mails can be sent to

November
5
Uniform
Hotel
Golf
at
hotmail.com

"Taylor Miller" wrote in message
om...
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

the two main reasons for installing an earth ground a

1: provide a path to ground that (hopefully) will not pass through a human
body in the event that equipment becomes electrically faulty.

2: provide a safe (safer) current path to ground in the event of a direct
lightning strike

in addition well thought out grounding techniques are beneficial to proper
recording studio operation.


i think its time to practice you negotiating skills with the contractor and
get at least one grounded outlet for your studio operation.

I worked for Digital Equipment Computers.

In the late nineties, we moved a board manufacturing operation from
Albuquerque New Mexico to Mexico. Some bright shining star asshole said it
would be cheaper to make PC boards south of the border, after all NAFTA took
care of any problems with duties.

Well, it took a long time to make it happen, but eventually the whole
operation was moved and the New Mexico facility closed and all the people
there off to find other employment.

After about a year of trying to make it work out, having already spent a
year getting things started, it turned out that work ethic, cultural
differences, payola, bribes, graft, blackmail and technical incompetence
stated to take it's toll on a our quality levels.

We couldn't move the stuff back to New Mexico, we had to move it all to
Kanata, Canada to make our PC boards and bring the quality back up.

When the highly sophisticated automated machinery (pick and pace), imported
from Japan at great cost was brought into our plant, every machine had it's
ground wires removed and most of the safeties were gone too.

I guess Mexico does not have a national electrical standard that the
government or general population could give a **** about.

If you could get the electrical up to your building and then do all the
internal stuff yourself, then you could figure a ground into the circuit by
sticking a long, 12 foot rod into the ground.





"Tim Perry" wrote in message
...

"Taylor Miller" wrote in message
om...
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

the two main reasons for installing an earth ground a

1: provide a path to ground that (hopefully) will not pass through a human
body in the event that equipment becomes electrically faulty.

2: provide a safe (safer) current path to ground in the event of a direct
lightning strike

in addition well thought out grounding techniques are beneficial to proper
recording studio operation.


i think its time to practice you negotiating skills with the contractor
and
get at least one grounded outlet for your studio operation.

"Richard Tomkins" wrote in message
s.com...
I worked for Digital Equipment Computers.

In the late nineties, we moved a board manufacturing operation from
Albuquerque New Mexico to Mexico. Some bright shining star asshole said it
would be cheaper to make PC boards south of the border, after all NAFTA
took
care of any problems with duties.

Well, it took a long time to make it happen, but eventually the whole
operation was moved and the New Mexico facility closed and all the people
there off to find other employment.

After about a year of trying to make it work out, having already spent a
year getting things started, it turned out that work ethic, cultural
differences, payola, bribes, graft, blackmail and technical incompetence
stated to take it's toll on a our quality levels.

We couldn't move the stuff back to New Mexico, we had to move it all to
Kanata, Canada to make our PC boards and bring the quality back up.

When the highly sophisticated automated machinery (pick and pace),
imported
from Japan at great cost was brought into our plant, every machine had
it's
ground wires removed and most of the safeties were gone too.

I guess Mexico does not have a national electrical standard that the
government or general population could give a **** about.

If you could get the electrical up to your building and then do all the
internal stuff yourself, then you could figure a ground into the circuit
by
sticking a long, 12 foot rod into the ground.




i have personally seen some really frightening wiring in Mexico. stuff like
exposed meter sockets at about shoulder hight one the front of a building by
a sidewalk.

the fancy tourist hotels seemed to be OK. the equipment i brought all
worked fine but i had a battery backup mixer just in case.

i have personally seen some really frightening wiring in Mexico. stuff like
exposed meter sockets at about shoulder hight one the front of a building by
a sidewalk.

the fancy tourist hotels seemed to be OK. the equipment i brought all
worked fine but i had a battery backup mixer just in case.

I've seen the same things down here. I've seen openly exposed meter
sockets on more than one occasion.

They just don't seem to care too much about safety where anything is
concerned. I've seen some things that were just completely insane.

My first time driving down, while coming through Monterrey during rush
hour, I was driving over an overpass. When I topped the crest there
were about 6 Mexicans spread out all along the bridge sweeping it with
straw brooms like you would use on your kitchen floor. We're talking
about 60 mph traffic, and there was no shoulder, just a yellow line
and about a foot's space over to the guard rail.

I almost soiled my laundry just seeing them there. The crazy thing is,
they weren't even paying attention to the traffic. They had there
heads down and were ferociously involved in their sweeping, while cars
sped past at literally inches away. I can honestly say, that not being
used to seeing anthing like that, it was a shock to my senses.

Taylor

They just don't seem to care too much about safety where anything is
concerned. I've seen some things that were just completely insane.

We did a gig in an old cathedral on a hill outside Guanajuato. I noticed all
our gear was running really hot. I followed the leads & saw that someone had
wired us up (with uninsulated wire) to a tap on the telephone pole just
outside. No distro, no service box, just bare wires wrapped around the lines on
the pole.

Scott Fraser

They just don't seem to care too much about safety where anything is
concerned. I've seen some things that were just completely insane.

We did a gig in an old cathedral on a hill outside Guanajuato. I noticed all
our gear was running really hot. I followed the leads & saw that someone had
wired us up (with uninsulated wire) to a tap on the telephone pole just
outside. No distro, no service box, just bare wires wrapped around the lines on
the pole.

Scott Fraser

i have personally seen some really frightening wiring in Mexico. stuff like
exposed meter sockets at about shoulder hight one the front of a building by
a sidewalk.

the fancy tourist hotels seemed to be OK. the equipment i brought all
worked fine but i had a battery backup mixer just in case.

I've seen the same things down here. I've seen openly exposed meter
sockets on more than one occasion.

They just don't seem to care too much about safety where anything is
concerned. I've seen some things that were just completely insane.

My first time driving down, while coming through Monterrey during rush
hour, I was driving over an overpass. When I topped the crest there
were about 6 Mexicans spread out all along the bridge sweeping it with
straw brooms like you would use on your kitchen floor. We're talking
about 60 mph traffic, and there was no shoulder, just a yellow line
and about a foot's space over to the guard rail.

I almost soiled my laundry just seeing them there. The crazy thing is,
they weren't even paying attention to the traffic. They had there
heads down and were ferociously involved in their sweeping, while cars
sped past at literally inches away. I can honestly say, that not being
used to seeing anthing like that, it was a shock to my senses.

Taylor

In article writes:

1: provide a path to ground that (hopefully) will not pass through a human
body in the event that equipment becomes electrically faulty.

2: provide a safe (safer) current path to ground in the event of a direct
lightning strike

Actually, the latter is the real reason for providing an earth ground.
The safety ground that's connected to earth is to provide a more
direct return path for the electrical supply than through you and the
earth.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

Scott Fraser

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

Scott Fraser

I've seen some three prong outlets in quite few homes down here. As to
whether they had an actual ground wire run to them, I don't know.

Taylor

In article ,
ScotFraser wrote:
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

What is worse, I have seen three-prong outlets with the ground floating
in Mexico.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ...
In article ,
ScotFraser wrote:
snip
I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere
in Mexico, either in theater venues or hotels.

What is worse, I have seen three-prong outlets with the ground
floating in Mexico.

I've seen three-prong outlets with unconnected grounds in the U.S.
Jacklegs are everywhere. Always use a tester before connecting.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ...
In article ,
ScotFraser wrote:
snip
I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere
in Mexico, either in theater venues or hotels.

What is worse, I have seen three-prong outlets with the ground
floating in Mexico.

I've seen three-prong outlets with unconnected grounds in the U.S.
Jacklegs are everywhere. Always use a tester before connecting.

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

Scott Fraser

I've seen some three prong outlets in quite few homes down here. As to
whether they had an actual ground wire run to them, I don't know.

Taylor

In article ,
ScotFraser wrote:
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

What is worse, I have seen three-prong outlets with the ground floating
in Mexico.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets.

I have never seen a ground on any electrical outlet anywhere in Mexico, either
in theater venues or hotels.

Scott Fraser

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 23:21:47 +0000, Taylor Miller wrote:

I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here. It
seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug for the
electrical outlets. I'm in a newly constructed house, and that's the case
here. I started looking around, and indeed, they had never even put in a
ground rod where the power comes into the house.
[...snip]

It's the same situation here in Thailand. Almost nothing [fans, lights
etc] has an earth, and anything that does have one has it chopped off.
They even sell power boards with three holes, but no metal in the earht
pin hole! I found I was getting shocks anytime I tried to use my mic
connected to my computer at home. Like you, the apartment building I'm in
is new - that's just the way things are done here.

I got a quote to put in a spike and run an earth wire up to my apartment
[3rd floor] - about 3000 baht; just over a month's rent...

Merlin Zener wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 23:21:47 +0000, Taylor Miller wrote:


I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here. It
seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug for the
electrical outlets. I'm in a newly constructed house, and that's the case
here. I started looking around, and indeed, they had never even put in a
ground rod where the power comes into the house.
[...snip]


It's the same situation here in Thailand. Almost nothing [fans, lights
etc] has an earth, and anything that does have one has it chopped off.
They even sell power boards with three holes, but no metal in the earht
pin hole! I found I was getting shocks anytime I tried to use my mic
connected to my computer at home. Like you, the apartment building I'm in
is new - that's just the way things are done here.

I got a quote to put in a spike and run an earth wire up to my apartment
[3rd floor] - about 3000 baht; just over a month's rent...


Maybe you could fight fire with fire (so to speak), adopt that kind of
technology. Connect all your equipment frames together, look around for
other nearby exposed metal and figure out what to do with that (connect,
ignore, or cover). Maybe even a single point to a cold-water pipe.
You'd definitely have to know what you're doing and design carefully,
and stay in places where codes don't apply.

It could be as simple as just using real 3-prong outlet strips
throughout, up to where the 2-prong wiring stops; and running ground
wires or connecting unused channel inputs together.

(Taylor Miller) wrote in message . com...

STOP!......

I've read this thread in its entirety and I have to say that grounding
an ungrounded two-pin system is potentially *more* dangerous than
leaving it the way it is.

Normally the neutral is, as has been pointed out by other posters
here, bonded to ground at the switchboard. Nominally this should mean
that all plumbing etc will then be at ground potential, and
furthermore, in a three pin system, that if an appliance fails
internally, the resulting short will blow the fuse or circuit breaker
rather than leave the case live.

If you have a three pin system, then the case of any appliance that is
not double insulated (i.e has no possibility of developing a short
internally that would leave the case live), will be connected to the
earth pin and thence back to the switchboard to be bonded to neutral.

But with a two pin system you do *not* want the neutral to be bonded
to the case. This is because there's a pretty good chance you'll plug
such an appliance into a socket where line and neutral have been
reversed. With three pin sockets, doing this will not have any nasty
consequences because, remember, the earth pin is still connected to
the appliance case. But plugging in an appliance where the case is
connected to neutral into a reversed two-pin socket puts the whole
case at line potential.

Now reach over and touch that radiator!. Bam!.

This is why all the earth wires were cut in that expensive equipment.
That way the case floats. You can still get a shock; the zap comes
from capacitive coupling rather than a direct link - but if you plug
the gear into a wrongly-wired socket, you won't put the case at line
potential.

Also, if the neutral is allowed to float, then although there will be
a path from any plumbing back to neutral, this will be through a fair
amount of dirt rather than via a wire. So, (and given that Mexico is a
fairly dry place, most of the time) the amount of current that can
flow is limited by this.

If you want to run audio gear in an environment like this, use a large
isolating transformer (e.g 1 or 2KVA) and run everything off the
secondary of this. No matter what, you are now completely safe because
neither side of the secondary has a potential relative to ground,
because the transformer insulation prevents any direct connection (do
NOT use an auto-transformer, it MUST have an isolated secondary). You
see this used in bathrooms; the little shaver socket is powered from a
small isolating transformer so that no matter what, you can't get
zapped unless somehow you get across the entire secondary.

Now you can use normal three pin sockets and run the third pin back to
your ground outside. The line and neutral go to the secondary of the
transformer. There is now no interaction at ALL with the un-isolated 2
pin sockets in the rest of the house.

A 1KVA transformer will probably cost a couple of hundred bucks which
is cheap insurance, unless you don't value your life.

PS: with a three pin system there are six ways you can wire a socket,
of which only one is correct. However, if you work it out, there's
only two ways to wire a socket where the case is wrongly connected to
line AC. One of these will promptly blow the fuse, and in the other
case, the appliance won't power up, which *hopefully* will alert the
potential victim before its too late.

Whereas with two wires, if you get it wrong, the appliance will work
but the case will be live.

Yeah this is absolutely the proper solution and all the proper reasons are
in here.

Purchase the transformer and you won't end up as Foreign Toast.


"Andrew Mayo" wrote in message
om...
(Taylor Miller) wrote in message
. com...

STOP!......

I've read this thread in its entirety and I have to say that grounding
an ungrounded two-pin system is potentially *more* dangerous than
leaving it the way it is.

Normally the neutral is, as has been pointed out by other posters
here, bonded to ground at the switchboard. Nominally this should mean
that all plumbing etc will then be at ground potential, and
furthermore, in a three pin system, that if an appliance fails
internally, the resulting short will blow the fuse or circuit breaker
rather than leave the case live.

If you have a three pin system, then the case of any appliance that is
not double insulated (i.e has no possibility of developing a short
internally that would leave the case live), will be connected to the
earth pin and thence back to the switchboard to be bonded to neutral.

But with a two pin system you do *not* want the neutral to be bonded
to the case. This is because there's a pretty good chance you'll plug
such an appliance into a socket where line and neutral have been
reversed. With three pin sockets, doing this will not have any nasty
consequences because, remember, the earth pin is still connected to
the appliance case. But plugging in an appliance where the case is
connected to neutral into a reversed two-pin socket puts the whole
case at line potential.

Now reach over and touch that radiator!. Bam!.

This is why all the earth wires were cut in that expensive equipment.
That way the case floats. You can still get a shock; the zap comes
from capacitive coupling rather than a direct link - but if you plug
the gear into a wrongly-wired socket, you won't put the case at line
potential.

Also, if the neutral is allowed to float, then although there will be
a path from any plumbing back to neutral, this will be through a fair
amount of dirt rather than via a wire. So, (and given that Mexico is a
fairly dry place, most of the time) the amount of current that can
flow is limited by this.

If you want to run audio gear in an environment like this, use a large
isolating transformer (e.g 1 or 2KVA) and run everything off the
secondary of this. No matter what, you are now completely safe because
neither side of the secondary has a potential relative to ground,
because the transformer insulation prevents any direct connection (do
NOT use an auto-transformer, it MUST have an isolated secondary). You
see this used in bathrooms; the little shaver socket is powered from a
small isolating transformer so that no matter what, you can't get
zapped unless somehow you get across the entire secondary.

Now you can use normal three pin sockets and run the third pin back to
your ground outside. The line and neutral go to the secondary of the
transformer. There is now no interaction at ALL with the un-isolated 2
pin sockets in the rest of the house.

A 1KVA transformer will probably cost a couple of hundred bucks which
is cheap insurance, unless you don't value your life.

PS: with a three pin system there are six ways you can wire a socket,
of which only one is correct. However, if you work it out, there's
only two ways to wire a socket where the case is wrongly connected to
line AC. One of these will promptly blow the fuse, and in the other
case, the appliance won't power up, which *hopefully* will alert the
potential victim before its too late.

Whereas with two wires, if you get it wrong, the appliance will work
but the case will be live.

In article writes:

This is why all the earth wires were cut in that expensive equipment.
That way the case floats.

The case floats until the wiring inside deteriorates and the hot wire
happens to touch the case. If the case is tied back to neutral via the
safety ground, a fuse blows or circuit breaker trips, and the case is
no longer hot.

"Double insultated" two-wire devices are fairly common (and legal)
because there's no chance that someone touching the case will connect
to the hot wire even if it's bare and touching the (insulated) case
inside.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article ,
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets. I'm in a newly constructed house, and
that's the case here. I started looking around, and indeed, they had
never even put in a ground rod where the power comes into the house. I
found where the ground wire was sticking out through the the exterior
wall, but no rod. I went and bought a ground rod today, and I'll hook
that up tomorrow.

This is essential and keeps you from dying. Follow the NEC rules and get
it as close to the service entry panel as possible. Make sure there is
a loop in the service entry line to act as a common-mode choke against
lightning, too.

I had a construction guy in here yesterday, who told me that in cases
like this, people just run a ground to a portion of the house, like
the metal door frames, or window frames. That sounds like a disaster
waiting to happen to me.

Yes, I could see people doing that in Mexico. You know, there are a lot
of electrical fires in Mexico, too.

My question is this. Do I need to somehow ground to the same rod
outside where the power comes in, in order to prevent ground loops or
other problems? I can do that, it would just be a little ackward.

The ground rod ties to the service entry. The internal house wiring
also MUST have an external steel shield (BX type), or a third ground
wire (Romex type) in order to carry ground from the service entry panel
to each outlet.

For audio gear it would be good to have a couple home run lines directly
from the panel to outlets, with "isolated ground" so that the ground line
from the plug to the panel is not shared by any other outlets.

Another option would be to knock away the plaster, and tie into one of
the steel rods in a corner pillar. This is something else the
construction guy said is common.

Please advise as to what I should do. Any any response from me might
take a while, as I'm posting through Google.

Hire an outside electrician who knows what he is doing. Electrocution is
not good. You only have to smell burning hair once in your life to
understand the value of proper grounding.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message

I went and bought a ground rod today, and I'll hook
that up tomorrow.

This is essential and keeps you from dying. Follow the NEC rules and get
it as close to the service entry panel as possible. Make sure there is
a loop in the service entry line to act as a common-mode choke against
lightning, too.

I got the ground rod in and hooked to the ground wire coming out of
the house. I took your advice and talked to an electrictian today, and
he told me that I'm still not grounded. Apparantly, they just just run
that ground wire through the wall when they're building, but they
don't hook it into the service, or a ground rod. I guess they do have
the fore-thought to run the wire, in case someone want's to hook up a
ground later.


For audio gear it would be good to have a couple home run lines directly
from the panel to outlets, with "isolated ground" so that the ground line
from the plug to the panel is not shared by any other outlets.

This is what I'm planning to have the electrician fix me up with. All
I have to do is make sure that I have the ground making it to the
panel, then I'm going to have him fix me up a couple of custom wires
complete with breakers on one end, and outlets on the other end. I'll
have him fix them up where I can, connect and disconnect them quickly
from the panel. That way I can take them with me when I find a better
place. I'm actively trying to find a recording space. (Incidentally,
my whole panel consists of one breaker and 4 wires, two coming from
the meter, and two insanely small wires apparantly carrying the whole
house.

Thanks for the advice Scott. And, thanks to everyone else as well. I
thought about getting the transformer as was suggested, but I'm sure I
can't find one here, and if I could, I'm sure it would be 5 times the
price of one in the States. I'll have to save that consideration until
a time when I'm traveling back for a visit.

Taylor

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message

I went and bought a ground rod today, and I'll hook
that up tomorrow.

This is essential and keeps you from dying. Follow the NEC rules and get
it as close to the service entry panel as possible. Make sure there is
a loop in the service entry line to act as a common-mode choke against
lightning, too.

I got the ground rod in and hooked to the ground wire coming out of
the house. I took your advice and talked to an electrictian today, and
he told me that I'm still not grounded. Apparantly, they just just run
that ground wire through the wall when they're building, but they
don't hook it into the service, or a ground rod. I guess they do have
the fore-thought to run the wire, in case someone want's to hook up a
ground later.


For audio gear it would be good to have a couple home run lines directly
from the panel to outlets, with "isolated ground" so that the ground line
from the plug to the panel is not shared by any other outlets.

This is what I'm planning to have the electrician fix me up with. All
I have to do is make sure that I have the ground making it to the
panel, then I'm going to have him fix me up a couple of custom wires
complete with breakers on one end, and outlets on the other end. I'll
have him fix them up where I can, connect and disconnect them quickly
from the panel. That way I can take them with me when I find a better
place. I'm actively trying to find a recording space. (Incidentally,
my whole panel consists of one breaker and 4 wires, two coming from
the meter, and two insanely small wires apparantly carrying the whole
house.

Thanks for the advice Scott. And, thanks to everyone else as well. I
thought about getting the transformer as was suggested, but I'm sure I
can't find one here, and if I could, I'm sure it would be 5 times the
price of one in the States. I'll have to save that consideration until
a time when I'm traveling back for a visit.

Taylor

In article ,
I moved to Mexico last November, and I finally got my gear down here.
It seems that most houses down here are not built with a ground plug
for the electrical outlets. I'm in a newly constructed house, and
that's the case here. I started looking around, and indeed, they had
never even put in a ground rod where the power comes into the house. I
found where the ground wire was sticking out through the the exterior
wall, but no rod. I went and bought a ground rod today, and I'll hook
that up tomorrow.

This is essential and keeps you from dying. Follow the NEC rules and get
it as close to the service entry panel as possible. Make sure there is
a loop in the service entry line to act as a common-mode choke against
lightning, too.

I had a construction guy in here yesterday, who told me that in cases
like this, people just run a ground to a portion of the house, like
the metal door frames, or window frames. That sounds like a disaster
waiting to happen to me.

Yes, I could see people doing that in Mexico. You know, there are a lot
of electrical fires in Mexico, too.

My question is this. Do I need to somehow ground to the same rod
outside where the power comes in, in order to prevent ground loops or
other problems? I can do that, it would just be a little ackward.

The ground rod ties to the service entry. The internal house wiring
also MUST have an external steel shield (BX type), or a third ground
wire (Romex type) in order to carry ground from the service entry panel
to each outlet.

For audio gear it would be good to have a couple home run lines directly
from the panel to outlets, with "isolated ground" so that the ground line
from the plug to the panel is not shared by any other outlets.

Another option would be to knock away the plaster, and tie into one of
the steel rods in a corner pillar. This is something else the
construction guy said is common.

Please advise as to what I should do. Any any response from me might
take a while, as I'm posting through Google.

Hire an outside electrician who knows what he is doing. Electrocution is
not good. You only have to smell burning hair once in your life to
understand the value of proper grounding.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."