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My wife turned on our electric teakettle for "about a minute" to warm a few cups of water, then turned it off herself. After that, we smelled a burning smell, narrowing it down to that corner of the kitchen. The kettle itself had a very slight burnt smell at its base, not enough to explain what we were smelling. The only other thing plugged into that circuit was a coffee maker, which was off. The kettle was plugged into an outlet downstream from a GFCI receptacle, which had not tripped. I hit the Test button on that GFCI outlet, and it tripped properly, so I hit Reset. But the smell was stronger around that outlet, so I shut off the appropriate breaker (which also had not tripped) and removed that receptacle, finding a terminal melted and burnt!

The GFCI and breaker are original to the house, which was built in 2007. I read today that GFCIs should be replaced every ~10 years, and ones from that era and before may silently fail while still supplying power. We've had the teakettle plugged into the same outlet for years with no issues, often using daily.

Is this just a faulty old GFCI receptacle, and everything will be fine once I replace it (& the teakettle, which we were going to anyway)? Or should the breaker have tripped and it's time to call an electrician?

  • GFCI: Pass & Seymour E42190 20A
  • Breaker: Siemens L-5538 20A
  • Kettle: MegaChef 94496270M 1.8L

Melted receptacle

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    A loose connection can cause enough heat to burn/melt and perfectly working breakers and GFCI will not trip. An AFCI might trip. The ground wire screw does not look tight either.
    – crip659
    Commented Jul 14 at 13:53
  • There is no need to reiterate the accepted answer in your question. You can indicate that an answer solved your problem by accepting it. If you found your own unique solution you can post an answer of your own.
    – nobody
    Commented Sep 5 at 1:34

1 Answer 1

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Most likely a poor connection - connection not properly torqued (to a measured value, with a calibrated tool, neither too loose nor too tight - some folks think "properly torqued" means as hard as they can, and they are wrong.)

Eventually the connection then becomes loose and arcing starts, which is very hot. Things melt, char, etc. This can all happen without a ground fault or over-current (which is why arc-fault devices that can detect it are now a thing.)

It's not in any way the fault of the GFCI - it's the fault of whoever last touched that connection on it. The GFCI now needs to be replaced due to the charring damage. Per your report the circuitry works fine. The kettle is likely fine and no need to replace that. A poor connection on a circuit serving a kettle and a coffee pot (high amperage heating loads) is the problem, not the kettle, the coffee pot, the breaker, or the GFCI that passes its self-test.

When buying a new GFCI buy a Torque Driver as well, unless you own one. Look in the instructions for the correct torque value when you install the new GFCI.

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  • Torque is more critical (and usually better documented) for circuit breaker connections than for outlet/fixture connections, and too loose is more often a problem than too tight (short of stripping out the threads).
    – keshlam
    Commented Jul 14 at 16:21
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    @RobertChapin No. the wires don’t look backstabbed, at least I the normal sense. If you look closely, you’ll see that the wires go through the back to under the plate under the screw. This is actually a preferred type of receptacle where the wire tightens under the screw but you don’t have to loop the wire under.
    – DoxyLover
    Commented Jul 14 at 16:49
  • They are screw and clamp connections, not backstabs. Torque still matters.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Jul 14 at 19:33
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    @Robert GFCIs don't have backstabs. They use "screw-and-clamp" where you lay the wire in the slot and then crank down the screw to clamp it. These take much more torque than one would expect.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 14 at 20:07
  • Makes sense now. I just use the screws.
    – Robert Chapin
    Commented Jul 14 at 21:52

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