We just moved into our home and the previous owner upgraded the master bathroom. There is a fancy toilet that has features that require electricity, a heated floor, a heated towel rack that never worked, and a whirlpool tub. There are two 15 amp breakers that supply electricity to the master bathroom.
The inspector said that the GFCI outlet wasn't grounded, and we also discovered that when we ran the electric clothes dryer (it's in the utility room next to the bathroom) it sometimes caused the GFCI in the master bathroom to trip. The only thing plugged into the GFCI outlet is the toilet and so we would unplug the toilet and plug it back in. I was thinking that maybe the clothes dryer circuit shared a neutral with the circuit the GFCI is on. The GFCI has no load wires coming out, only line wires coming in.
We decided to replace the GFCI outlet and when I took it out I discovered that the ground wire was next to the neutral wire. There are two "stab in" inlets for the neutral wires and the neutral wire was in one and the ground wire was in the other. When I put on the new GFCI outlet I connected the ground to the ground screw at the bottom of the GFCI and the hot and neutral wires in the proper "stab in" inlets on the line side. I used a 20 amp Leviton and the previous GFCI was a Pass and Seymour legrand 15 amp. I discovered later that's against the code. In and of itself it doesn't pose a threat to have a 20 amp receptacle on a 15 amp circuit but the danger is that someone might think it's a 20 amp circuit and plug in a 20 amp device.
When I finished putting the new GFCI outlet in place I turned the two breakers back on and plugged in the toilet and there was no power to the toilet. What's more, the floor heater control panel was blank and there was no heat going to the floor. There was nothing else plugged into the bathroom circuits; no high amp devices turned on anywhere.
My question is, "Why would putting in a new GFCI outlet cause this no power condition in the GFCI circuit and in the floor heating?" The floor heating system is a NuHeat product and it has its own GFCI built in. But why would it go out as well? The breakers didn't trip at all. Could it be an open circuit? If so how could that happen just by installing a new GFCI?