Electrical wiring help: what to do with unused ground wire.

It’s the ground so therefore it’s not “hot” so you don’t have to do anything with it. Just push it into the back of the box to get it out of the way and forget about it.

Can you help me understand the ground wire? I understand that it is to trip the circuit if there is a fault anywhere. But the amount of times a circuit is "grounded" doesn't make sense to me.

Is the ground included in everything simply to expand the places that the circuit is grounded?

The neutral and ground wire land on the same neutral bar in the panel as the neutral wire. Why does the neutral not serve as a ground at the same time?

What is the ground screw on an outlet "grounded" to internally?

I am slightly embarrassed I don't understand the mechanics of the ground other than knowing what to do with it. I've done quite a bit of electrical work mostly on my home and I always do what is required with the ground.

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I am slightly embarrassed I don't understand the mechanics of the ground other than knowing what to do with it. I've done quite a bit of electrical work mostly on my home and I always do what is required with the ground.

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I’m in the same boat.

I know what a ground wire does (in the most basic terms) but what I don’t know is how it works with other ground wires on the same circuit and then down “the line”

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Pigtail the ground wire with the ground wire of the other light switch that’s in the box (being used for a different light).

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This is what I would do, provided they are on the same circuit (breaker). This way you don’t have a random lose wire and it’s properly grounded with the rest of the system.

ETA:
If it’s simply a pigtail for the switch coming from the ground bundle that results in ONLY the switch being ungrounded, then you’re fine. If the wire goes into the wall without passing through the ground bundle, it needs to be grounded to ensure continuity of the ground circuit.

Regardless, you can tie the ground together and have zero impact to the circuit.

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What I’m trying to say is, four ground wires in the box pigtailed together. Two are coming out of the wall into the pigtail, two coming from the pigtail to the light switches.

What are my options for the unused ground? Can I ground it to the terminal of the light switch that will still be using its dedicated ground?

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If the unused ground is just going back to the ground bundle, then you could remove just remove it. If you want to keep it for whatever reason, you can tie it back into any of the ground wires or grounding connection. There’s no harm in tying a ground wire back to itself or another ground.

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WhiskeyThrottle

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I'll see if I can answer your questions here.

1. A ground circuit gives a low-resistance path for electricity to flow in the event of a fault.

2. This low-resistance path will cause the fault current to increase very quickly and trip the breaker.

3. A neutral is considered a "current-carrying conductor", meaning during regular operation it should have current flowing through it and be "hot." The fact that it carries current under normal conditions is why the wire is insulated.

4. The ground wire will only have current flowing through it during a fault condition, which is why it is uninsulated.

5. The neutral and ground busses are "bonded" at the panel and both allow electricity to travel to the "ground rod" in the ground right outside your panel. But again, the neutral will normally be hot and the ground will not.

6. The ground screw on an outlet or most metal pieces of equipment will be on most of the unelectrified metal parts. This way, if a hot wire loses its insulation and sends electricity into the metal, it has a safe path to travel to ground in the panel and quickly trip the breaker. If there is no path to ground and the hot wire were to electrify something else metal, you run the risk of shocking yourself if you touch it and become part of the circuit yourself.

Grounding gets much more complex than this when putting ground grids in industrial and commercial facilities but in a residential setting it's fairly straightforward.

Let me know if anything else is confusing.