But there are also circumstances where pipes are used as in this picture:
This is NOT recommended but who knows how your home is wired? And perhaps you live in a multi-unit dwelling of some kind. Whatever the situation, the idea behind 'ground' is literal. It means attaching your equipment, through a wire into the ground.
We do not live in a perfect world. Well, at least most of us don't. And in our imperfect world much can go wrong. Wiring can be old, instead of copper some homes used aluminum, electricians did not actually connect your ground wire to the third prong on the receptacle. I've even seen the neutral tied to the third prong.
Home grounding schemes can be a like a hospital. You don't want to look too closely for fear of what you might find.
Perhaps the single biggest cause of ground loops is cable TV. Connect a cable TV anywhere in the system and chances are good you'll have hum. Why? Because the cable company uses a ground different than that of your home.
But I digress into too much data.
The tendency here is to think that whenever two pieces of kit are interconnected together and cause hum it's a ground loop. That's not a great conclusion and tomorrow we'll discuss why.
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