Surely every novice electrician has heard of such a method of protection against electric shock as grounding electrical appliances. Installation of a three-wire electrical network is a must when building a modern home. But what if you live in an old apartment in which such a protection system has not yet been used during construction? In this case, you need to do the so-called grounding of the electrical wiring. Read on to learn more about what both systems are and what is the difference between grounding and grounding!
The main differences
Both the first and the second protection systems perform the same function - protecting a person from electric shock when touching a bare wire or electrical appliance on which it occurs. The only difference is that grounding provokes an instant power outage in case of dangerous contact between a person and a wire, and grounding instantly removes dangerous voltage to the ground. This is their general difference from each other, in a nutshell.
If we consider the issue in more detail, then we need to dwell on what is the principle of operation of each protection option, on the basis of which the difference between the alternative options will be immediately visible. Grounding works as follows: a ground wire is connected to the body of hazardous electrical appliances, which goes to the corresponding bus in the distribution board. From there, a common ground wire goes to the main ground loop - a metal structure dug into the ground next to the house (as shown in the photo). If there is a breakdown of the current to the device case or contact with a bare current-carrying conductor, the person will pass the danger.
As for grounding, it is a connection of the body of the electrical appliance with the neutral wire of the network - zero. The result is a closed loop, as shown in the diagram below. If a dangerous situation arises, the circuit breakers on the terminal board will instantly turn off the power. 
You can clearly see the difference between grounding and grounding in this diagram:
We hope that now it has become clear to you how the two security systems differ and, no less important, how they work. We also recommend watching the difference between them with a visual example video:
The difference between alternative options