I have a outdoor circuit with multiple GFCI’s, all working but no lights are on

Question

I have an outdoor circuit with 5 total outlets, three are GFCI with two lights. I recently connected a bug zapper & timer to one of the GFCI outlets and noticed that none of the the lights are lit but all of the outlets are working, is this normal ? Shouldn’t one of the led’s be solid green. I have tested and reset the outlets with the same outcome.

Answer 1

It depends on the make/model of the GFCI/receptacle. Many older ones do not have any lights. A GFCI at its essence is a very simple device, as opposed to an AFCI. So there is not necessarily any need for the relatively fancy circuitry that would, as a side-effect, provide an "on/good" indicator light.

Recent code requires self testing GFCI, whether at the breaker or receptacle (or in between). This requires more sophisticated circuitry, plus a green (doesn't have to be green, but that makes the most sense to me) light as an indicator of "all good" is helpful as an indication that the self-test has run properly.

You can easily have different makes/models of GFCI/receptacles in a house, so it is quite possible that you have indicator lights on the kitchen and bathroom GFCI/receptacles but not on the outdoor receptacles.

As noted in some comments, if wired properly, multiple receptacles can share GFCI protection provided in a breaker/GFCI or in one GFCI/receptacle. That can save some money initially as well as, in the case of outdoor receptacles, keep the electronics of the GFCI out of heat/cold/humidity/rain/etc.