As was suggested it was the GFCI itself that was the problem when inductive loads were switched off. I tested every GFCI receptacle in the house and found that they all test fine using the test and reset buttons. I found one other GFCI that would trip when the hair clippers were turned off. I replaced one GFCI with a Leviton unit and tried to get it to trip and it would not, no matter if it was the washer or the the clippers. None of the exterior GFCI receptacles would trip. One in one bathroom and one in the kitchen would trip. Our basement has high humidity, which I am working on to eliminate. The bathroom gets humid too. But the kitchen does not, even when boiling big pots of water, so I don't know if humidity has caused problems or if it is just chance. Anyway, at 26 bucks a pop from the local hardware store it would cost a lot to replace all the GFCIs in the house. I need to do some online shopping. Thanks for the help folks! Eric
Yes, I have had to replace several older GFCIs that were starting to get nuisance trips. The new units worked fine. I'm guessing that the constant assault of transients slowly deteriorates them.
Code requires now the GFCI receptacles in wet locations as well as GFI breakers in the main panel. Every room in the house also has a GFCI receptacle. I assume each is at the beginning of a run so that all the non GFCI receptacles downstream are also protected. I don't know if that is code or exceeding code. The kitchen has 3 GFCIs. I dunno how many breakers in the panel supply the kitchen. From the way the house is set up I think one breaker supplies part of the kitchen, while another supplies the dining room and one receptacle on an island, while another breaker supplies the living room and one receptacle on the other end of the island. Everything is marked in the panel of course but I haven't really paid attention since there have been no problems except for the tripping GFCIs I posted about. Eric
receptacles when they're multiple receptacles per circuit. "
Not if the place has shared neutrals in the "wrong" place. I walked into a job where they had a guy updating the wiring, and IMO wasn't all that great , but he tried to run bedrooms off a GFCI breaker and every time the 2 bedr oom lights were on it would trip the breaker. One or the other would stay o n.
The problem ? Shared neutral. Shared neutrals have killed electricians. The re were 2 possible solutions, one was to tear out the new walls and require part of the house being careful about the neutrals, or take it off the GFC I and tell them no arc welding in the bedroom. Do it or walk off and they c an get a real idiot who doesn't know a neutral from his big toe.
No, you can not just throw in GFCI breakers or a new box with them and expe ct no problems.
non GFCI receptacles downstream are also protected."
Nope. There is no more of that now because the device cannot be the splice.
that is code or exceeding code."
Then you don't know.
I have found that daisy chaining a bunch of stuff off a GFCI outlet can be troublesome. First of all it causes more nuisance trips. A light over the s ink is alright but not a bunch of more outlets. Even better - if you got a bunch of stuff running off of one and it trips, you don't know which outlet tripped it.
It is a bit difficult to eliminate all shared neutrals, if can be done but costs more both in labor and materials.
I saw licensed, bonded and insured electricians wire an apartment using 3 r uns of 14-3 WG. (may have been 12 but if it was it had very thin insulation ) I had 2 110 volt window A/c units in 2 different rooms and they ended up on the same side of the 220. I was getting 25 volts between neutral and gro und, I had to get one of those extension cords for one of them to plug in i nto a different outlet. But the point is, there were only 3 neutrals for th e whole apartment, an upstairs of a house.
They couldn't tape drywall either. I turned on the livingroom light and it looked like they hung the sheetrock inside out it was so badly built up. An d they said "Well it is better than the old plaster ceiling right ?". I sai d "NO, it isn't". Licensed, bonded, insured, $ 35,000 job. About $ 1.12/sq. ft. which is 32 per sheet. i don't know about you but even though I hate d rywall I could bring myself to hang 3 sheets of it for a hundred bucks, and it would not look like that despite my eyesight.
On new construction - definitely. There is no way it can be code. You can g o so far with using GFCI outlets all over the place but I am pretty sure th ey mean for the lights to be protected as well. this would be impossible wi thout properly managing the neutrals. That means neutrals are only shared w ith everything on the same circuit, no other. And those heavy duty outlets in the kitchen that used to use 12-2 WG with the bridge between the hots cu t and one to each breaker, one on each phase, not work. No good, it is a th ing of the past. They came in handy, some people have like the microwave, t oaster and coffee maker all right together. In most cases15 amps is not eno ugh should you want to run all 3 at the same time. And that is a definite p ossibility.
I am pretty strict about wiring. In fact we got onw of those "really good" inspectors, Ivan Cucic, dubbed Ivan the Terrible by people who THINK they'r e electricians. I can understand the guy, he doesn't want people burned to death. And most of the code makes alot of sense. But as far as I can find, the need for arcproof breakers is at the very least overstated.
[political podium{short}] Regulatory agencies need regulation. For example, only a thousand or two people died from electrical fires, something like t hat, not sure if ANY died because of the lack of arcproof breakers. Take ra w milk. If you sell raw milk in many states ad they catch you they treat yo u like you were cooking meth. A great threat to public safety right ? Yup, like a hundred people have gotten sick from contaminated raw milk that past eurization MIGHT have prevented. I mean in like the past 10 years. OK ? Was it a knee jerk reaction ? Nope, lobbyists. [/political podium{short}]
Arcproof breaker requirements are sponsored by manufacturers of arcproof br eakers. You know the Teflon tape the local DIY sells you telling you it is code ? That is a lie, it is not required nor has it ever been. By code it i s an acceptable substitute for pipe dope. Real plumbers use pipe dope. Anot her way to spot a wannabe (for the paycheck) is when they use Teflon tape o n the nut on a compression fitting, or the nut on a flare fitting. Or on br ass. Pipe dope or anything like it is for use on sealing threads only, and anyone who doesn't know the difference should not be doing plumbing. Especi ally gas.
Another licensed and bonded supposed plumber, puts hot water tank in house, discards steel pipes and puts in plastic. Easy, just run it to the tank an d voila. MMM, HMMM.
Gas Kan gets there and says "If I hook up the gas now I'll lose my job. Why ? Mr. Knowitall forgot, or never knew to, put in a sediment trap before th e gas valve. Not very important really, all it does is to make sure that a piece of crap from the inside of the pipe doesn't jam in the gas valve and make it stay on when turned off. Nothing big, right ?
Licensed bonded and insured means when they kill someone with their imprope rly performed work they don't lose their house n shit, especially when work ing under a corporate shell.
Fukum, we call nobody. In fact even cement work. After the driveway. It is too high. I wasn't here during the contracting of that bur first of all no standpipes, can't plow. I am going to cut them off one of these days. Ad it is to high. now I know damn well if I told them "Oh by the way, same heigh t as the original" they would have tried to say something about code. I wou ld have said "Show me the book". Like I installed a side draft furnace once to have some idiot come along ans say it is not code. Bullshit.
I say to everyone - whenever a contractor starts about some code shit that makes no sense, remember these 4 words - "SHOW ME THE BOOK".
I'll bet you a hundred bucks they'll say they don't have one. Or that it co sts too much to leave the office. Then you offer to go to the office. The e nd result is that they will be proven liars in some cases and in those case s they will just skulk away. Yeah "Well I'll get back to you on that". Afte r the runaround you call someone else and they can practice their craft on others.
People piss me off, you can make a good living being honest - as long as yo u really know what you're doing.
Enough rant.
I know someone personally WITH the book (NEC and addendums for certain loca lities) and I can call her any time. Yes, she is in the elite union, the on es who wire nuclear power plants, hospitals etc., and one of them want to w ork on old residential. Some of them would turn down a hundred bucks an hou r to do it. Well that's from 5 of them anyway...
Old residential is my specialty, these people do not want licenses or any o f tat shit, they want a personal reference or two, and to talk and have you explain the why and why mot of a few things. They'll either forget about a permit or get a homeowner's permit. I encourage them to have my work inspe cted. There is almost always absolutely even remotely wrong with it, but th ey might find a few violations on the house I can make a few bucks fixing.
The only time Ivan the Terrible had anything to say was right when the requ irement came that if you use a cold water pipe for ground it must be bypass ed with clamped wires across every joint from your connection all the way t o the other side of the meter. It was easier to just pound in a new ground rod, and he was pleased as punch. But that regulation had come out very rec ently and I hadn't caught wind of it yet. No problem, a clamp, 15 feet of g reen # 8 and ba da bing ba da boom.
The house was built about ten years ago. I looked at one circuit, in the unfinished basement. This is the one with the washing machine. Anyway, all the wires are visible. There are two receptacles downstream of the GFCI recpetacle. On the new GFCI there was a label that must be removed that covers the screws for downstream receptacles. The label states that the power to the GFCI must not be connected to the label covered screws. The screws are for connecting other receptacles after the GFCI. And the GFCI that I replaced had wires connected to it that power a couple other receptacles. So what gives? Are you saying that code requires all receptacles to be connected directly to the wires from the panel? And the receptacles after the one basement GFCI are not to code now and weren't when wired ten years ago? That the GFCI cannot be used to protect other receptacles? If this is the case then I need to at least change the wiring in the walls in the unfinished basement. Thanks, Eric
after the one basement GFCI are not to code now and weren't when wired ten years ago? That the GFCI cannot be used to protect other receptacles?"
If it was code when it got wired you don't have to change it.
They made it that way for good reason, if say you have a regular outlet, it has 4 screws for the wires. People had often fed one set of screws and the n used the other set to feed more outlets. So if the outlet gets broken ad you have to replace it, in doing so you break the circuit down the line. It could have a shared neutral which means it can be dangerous even with the breaker off.
Now, you have to pigtail it, that is use wire nuts and put together your fe ed and fed and another set of wires to go to the outlet. It takes a little bit more time but it is required by code so every electrician worth a shit does it that way.
There are still 4 screws on outlets though, but for the right reason, that is if you want them separate like one switched or have the off separate cir cuits. In the past you could get away with one neutral but now with GFCIs r equired the neutral side bridge between the screws also has to be cut so it can have its own separate neutral.
In a pre-existing dwelling, most go with the GFCI outlets because then you don't have to worry about the neutrals. the code does not say it must be a GFCI breaker, it only says the circuit must be GFCI protected. Now if you'r e adding a room to the house, you might find it easy enough just to protect the whole room with a GFCI breaker - just remember everything on that circ uit must share a neutral but that neutral must not be shared with anything else. Easy when you're doing it brand new, and also the code is a bit ambig uous on arcproof breakers, you might as well use one for any new constructi on anyway.
I know the arcproof is required on all new construction, but is a room addi tion considered new ? Just spend the $ 30 and get the dman thing and not ha ve any problems, and if it is inspected they like to see that anyway. What I do is to just make SURE, and it passes every time.
All, repeat, all neutrals are shared - at the panel. They all go into the s ame neutral bar, that is also grounded and typically bonded to the panel as well.
Double pole Ground-Fault BREAKERS share a neutral. And very often have unba lanced loads downstream of them.
GFIC RECEPTACLES (which are NOT breakers) should not share neutrals, and ma y not be cascaded without massive false tripping.
There is no reason whatsoever for a GFIC RECEPTACLE not to be downstream of a Ground-Fault BREAKER. They are fundamentally different devices and don't really 'see' each other.
No legitimate electrician would put two different legs on the same receptac le - and should any legitimate inspector find such a condition, there would be hell to pay.
I came up doing mostly old-house work, and some of my clients lived in hous es first wired in 1913. One house I wired in Manayunk (Phila. neighborhood) still had its original (and working) gas lights, gas refrigerator, gas hea t (gravity hot water) and gas stove. I added the first electrical system th at house ever had. The owner retained all his existing systems, he wanted A C in the summer. He was also born in the house. Luckily, the front and back walls (built in 1860 +/-) were balloon framed, such that getting wiring to the second floor was not overly difficult. He wanted no overhead lights, b ut my boss insisted that we put some in the hallway, bathroom and over the front and back doors.
Point being that we always endeavored to have at least two circuits per roo m, such that if one went down, there would still be power at the other. Whe reas code permitted up to ten (10) devices per circuit, we would do no more than six (6) and try to mix both receptacles and lighting. AC receptacles were always dedicated, as were refrigerators and any larger appliances. Ki tchen receptacles were made to alternate by leg, so 12-3 would come up and then branch out in 12-2 to accomplish that.
It took a bit more time, a bit more wire - usually, back in those days, abo ut $20 worth - but it made for a nicer job, fewer call-backs and a better f eeling walking away.
But the basic thing to remember though this entire discussion is that Ground Fault BREAKERS are not Ground Fault RECEPTACLES. Once that is figure d, the rest follows.
I looked online and could not find anything that says I cannot power other receptacles from the GFCI or that I have to use pigtails from the GFCI to the wires that go to the other receptacles. I took the GFCI out to look at it again and two screws are marked LINE and the other pair marked LOAD. There is no neutral bridge between the neutral screws on the GFCI. Are you saying that current code does not allow any other receptacles to be connected to the LOAD screws on the GFCI? Is that what you mean by using the GFCI as a splice? If not then please correct me because I am obvioulsy missing something. Thanks, Eric
power other receptacles from the GFCI or that I have to use pigtails from the GFCI to the wires that go to the other receptacles."
I stand corrected, that is a local thing. On regular outlets it is bad practice, but on a GFCI outlet, that neutral coming off the protected terminal is not going to be shared anyway, it would trip as soon as the other thing turns on.
I would only do it on a new circuit, you KNOW how that is connected.
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