Timeline for How should I connect a new GFCI outlet to a circuit with red, black, and white wires?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 31 at 1:00 | comment | added | NoSparksPlease | Is there a white wire spliced through the box that you didn't mention? | |
| Oct 30 at 21:12 | comment | added | nobody | Why exactly do you think you need to change this receptacle to GFCI? Are you positive you don't have GFCI protection already? The photos look like a kitchen, and the NEC has required kitchens to have (at a minimum) two 120V / 20A circuits for receptacles (or at least one MWBC) and has required GFCI for many decades. Your work doesn't look old enough to pre-date the GFCI requirement. | |
| Oct 30 at 18:12 | history | edited | isherwood | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 56 characters in body
|
| Oct 30 at 17:59 | answer | added | jay613 | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 30 at 13:17 | comment | added | Huesmann | Do you have pics of any wiring in the box? | |
| Oct 30 at 2:08 | comment | added | Ecnerwal | That's a perfectly normal and "traditional" MWBC. Educate yourself on the subject, it's likely not the only one in your house. The fact that your limited electrical research has not come across them is not an indication that it's in any way unusual. Depending on age of the installation the breaker(s) feeding it may not be two pole or handle-tied, which then risks you only turn off half the power and get unexpectedly shocked. | |
| Oct 30 at 2:02 | answer | added | NoSparksPlease | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 30 at 1:58 | comment | added | Raul | Added two photos of the old non-gfci switch | |
| Oct 30 at 1:58 | history | edited | Raul | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 225 characters in body
|
| Oct 30 at 1:51 | comment | added | Raul | Using the term neutral could be an error on my part. I used voltage detector and two wires were live and two were not. It's not a traditional setup for sure as none of the only videos showed this. I opened an existing gfci in my washroom and that one has two black and two white which is how it's supposed to be. But in this case one black and one red coming from the same side from the wall are hot when I check with my voltage detector and the other set is not. Then there is a white wire and a bare one. | |
| Oct 30 at 0:57 | comment | added | nobody | Photos would be useful. Are the little metal tabs (joining the two screws on each side) on the existing receptacle intact? | |
| Oct 30 at 0:56 | comment | added | nobody | "One black and one red are hot wires and other black nad red set is neutral." This is almost certainly not true. | |
| Oct 30 at 0:56 | comment | added | manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact | Something doesn't add up. There are a bunch of possibilities. But two black, two red would normally be combined with two white and two bare copper. The "other black and red" is definitely not neutral. Pictures would help a lot. In addition, if you can use a multimeter to carefully measure the voltage between the hot black and red and between each of those and white and the ground, that would provide a lot of insight into what is going on here (could involve a switched receptacle, an MWBC or something else.) | |
| Oct 30 at 0:55 | history | edited | nobody |
edited tags
|
|
| S Oct 30 at 0:51 | review | First questions | |||
| Oct 30 at 1:20 | |||||
| S Oct 30 at 0:51 | history | asked | Raul | CC BY-SA 4.0 |