I've got a bunch of two-prong outlets in my 1990s house that I'm trying to update. I want to plug in my newer appliances but I'm not sure if I can just swap them out myself or if I need an electrician. Do I need to run new wire or something?
You'll need an electrician because swapping the outlet itself won't fix the actual problem - your house wiring from the 1990s likely doesn't have a ground wire running through it, so there's nothing safe to connect to that third prong, and adding grounding would require running new wire through your walls which is a job for a professional.
The real issue is what's actually behind your walls - if your older wiring doesn't have a ground conductor running to those outlets, physically swapping the outlet won't create one, so you'd just be putting a three-prong outlet on a two-wire system, which defeats the purpose.
You could run new grounded wire (which is the proper fix), but that's a pretty involved job involving walls and conduit, so most people end up calling an electrician.
Before you do that though, it's worth checking if maybe some of your circuits already have ground - hire someone to test a few outlets first, because sometimes older houses surprise you and have partial grounding in certain areas.
Putting a three-prong outlet faceplate onto a two-prong outlet box is basically asking for trouble - you'd be creating a safety hazard where someone plugs in a grounded appliance expecting it to be safe, but it's actually not. Don't do that.
The problem that earlier answers touched on is real: your walls probably don't have a ground wire, so you can't just swap the physical outlet. But here's something they didn't mention - even if you somehow got a three-prong outlet installed, you'd be creating a false sense of security. Modern appliances with three-prong plugs expect that ground connection to actually exist. If it doesn't, you've defeated the whole safety feature and now you've got a liability issue on your hands 😬
For a proper fix, you've got a couple real options. You can run new wire with a ground conductor from your breaker box to those outlets - this is doable but involves opening walls or running surface conduit, which is why electricians charge for it. Or you could use GFCI outlets (those ones with the little test/reset buttons) on ungrounded circuits - they actually provide protection without requiring a ground wire and are way cheaper to install. Check with your local electrical codes though, since some jurisdictions have specific rules about this depending on the room and what you're plugging in.
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