New answers tagged gfci
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Part 1: Know your loads
Unfortunately, I am currently renting, and the homeowner refuses to allow any work to be done.
I feel you. Same situation here, except my service is 120V/30A split to two 20A circuits for the whole house.
We trip a breaker several times a day.
STOP. DOING. THAT. Right now!
When a breaker trips, reset it ONCE. If it trips ...
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The grounding/GFCI scheme sounds plausible. However, you still have a big problem that the 15A receptacles will be on a 50A breaker. They must be on 15A or 20A breakers. Anything larger and you risk a problem of an appliance fault that doesn't cause a ground fault but results in 2X overcurrent (i.e., 30A or possibly more) never tripping a breaker and instead ...
answered 2 days ago
manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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1
OK. So the zoom-in and brightening makes clear what is happening. Imagine there is a physical partition between left and right sides of the box.
On the left side
Goes the GFCI. Since you don't care about protecting any devices downline of here, this is super easy: Leave the "For Wizards Only" warning tape on the LOAD terminals, and everything goes to ...
answered May 30 at 17:41
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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Probably a bad GFCI. It should just trip if something is wrong with the vacuum, not smoke and blow up. Try the vacuum with a different outlet. Maybe one without a GFCI just Incase something really wired if going on. Worst that happens is you see a few sparks and the breaker trips. It won't damage anything.
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Normally, the wiring for an outdoor outlet should be from the lower side in order to prevent water coming into the device. Here the wire enters from the right side, which could be a risk, since wind may press water along the cable into the outlet, if the sealing is damaged.
In humid areas an outdoor outlet should be airtight, IP 66 or higher, if a GFCI ...
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It's not about a short. It's about insulation leakage. Tear it down and look for any place where electricity is able to contact where it should not, or places where debris is able to form a conductive path where it should not. You can paint it with insulating paint, or epoxy.
answered May 24 at 21:20
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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3
No. A circuit which supplies kitchen countertop receptacles can ONLY serve:
Receptacles located in the kitchen or dining area
A clock on the wall (remember those)
Auxiliary electrical loads in a gas powered oven/range
Even if your installation is grandfathered, you're not allowed to make a grandfathered installation worse than it already is.
However, ...
answered May 24 at 15:36
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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It may be related to the cleaning method. Nowadays many users prefer cleaning sprays, which would settle and accumulate on even the interior surfaces through tiny openings, where hot wires are present. These residuals have conductive components (ions) which lower the surface resistance. Depending on which parts are set on high voltage, the opening of one or ...
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The fridge shouldn't be on GFCI anyway. Imagine if it had tripped over the night, you woke up to make coffee, the coffeemaker didn't work and you found the GFCI tripped, and you reset it naturally. Would you register what it means when the fridge also starts up? Or would the fridge re-cool by the time you go to get food out of it, and you're none the ...
answered May 24 at 4:23
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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Is your RCD 1P or 1P+N? The first only interrupts th live, the second both conductors.
If it's 1P you may have a residual current on the neutral leacking to PE making it to trip. An easy fix could be replacing the RCD with a 2P model
Also are you on TT earthing or TN distribution? If you're on TT your breakers must be at least 1P+N because neutral is ...
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Most circuit breakers only disconnect hot/phase. They do not disconnect neutral.
The problem is, somewhere in your handling of the wires, you managed to touch neutral to safety earth. Now, the electricity returning on neutralfrom other circuits has two paths: It can go back the normal way through the RCCB, or it can go via this circuit's neutral, to the ...
answered May 21 at 23:34
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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An RCD (in any form) is always looking at the current going out vs the current coming back, which SHOULD be zero difference, so if they are different by the amount of your RCD (usually 10 to 30mA in your part of the world), the device trips. It might be that your type of meter is one that measures by looking at the potential difference by putting on a small ...
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You all gave good answers. A GFI will trip with as little as 10 milliamps to ground. Since an mov can conduct 5000 amps to ground during a spike it can easily trip the GFI. all it takes is a small power Spike from something turning on or turning off like the AC unit. Gfi's are not compatible with surge protectors is the best way to sum it up. Now you ...
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If the GFCIs have a 5mA threshold, the reason might be related to the cable capacitances. Domestic cables can accumulate 200-400 nanoFarad per kilometer, i.e. the GFCI could trip if the summed up downstream cable length is 500m , if the voltage is 120V, 60Hz. Without any devices plugged into the circuit.
The usual PI-filters of switch mode power supplies ...
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They'll both trip
Both GFCIs will see the ground fault and react the same way to it, snapping off at the same time.
When you go to reset the receptacle, it will be dead. You will need to go down to the basement to reset the GFCI breaker, and then, the GFCI outlet will have a chance of being reset.
The contractor did it to correct a code violation
...
answered May 17 at 19:27
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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No way to tell in advance, it's going to be a race. The requirements for GFCI, both for breakers and for receptacles, is that they trip at between 4 and 6mA of current flow. So if one acts at 4ma and the other at 6ma, both meet tolerance specifications, but one trips first.
Breakers may actually take a little longer (at a time scale you can't detect) to ...
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In addition to the fine answers already submitted, you can pigtail one of the 120V legs from the 240V supply with a piece of #12AWG and hook it into a 120V outlet. Do the same to the supply neutral and also hook up your ground. Add a 20A breaker and pigtail a piece Of #12 AWG to the 120v leg you're using and disconnect the range breaker but leave it there in ...
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You can have the receptacle for the stove on the branch circuit for the counter top appliances.
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This is OK
While adding arbitrary things to kitchen countertop receptacle circuits is no good according to NEC 210.52(B)(2):
(2) No Other Outlets. The two or more small-appliance
branch circuits specified in 210.52(B)(1) shall have no other
outlets.
Exception No. 1: A receptacle installed solely for the electrical supply to
and support of an ...
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Crossed neutrals can be fixed depending on where they are crossed.
Start in your main panel. You will need to open the panel. WARNING, there is lethal voltage in there, if you aren't sure of what you are doing in the panel, hire a professional.
Look at both the breakers in question. Follow the hot wire from each breaker and find its corresponding neutral. ...
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Disconnect to two black wires that go to the back of the outlet and add a white wire and a black where there instead, matching the colors of the existing wires. Connect these new wires to the back of the GFCI at the line terminals.
to make this work you're probably going to need a new cover on that electrical box too, some sort of flat mud ring.
Get some ...
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Assuming that there is no other electric device connected to that GFCI - also not via a downstream/"load" outlet:
There might be a safety issue with that disposal, so taking care of the danger of electricity is mandatory.
Connecting the disposal to another GFCI outlet via an extension cable could disclose whether the disposal or the GFCI is defect.
The ...
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To add onto Harper’s answer: the only reason this would be safe and legal is if these two circuits are on opposite legs and the breakers are handle tied.
If these are on the same leg, the neutral is overloaded (potentially 35 amps on a 20 amp rated wire). This is very bad!
Also, do not tie in the neutrals for other circuits. This would result in the total ...
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That's fine, but you'll need to apply a factory handle-tie to those two breakers. When someone shuts them off, they must shut off together for safety reasons.
The handle-tie also assures they are phased correctly (on opposite phases), which they must be to avoid overloading neutral.
This type of arrangement is called a multi-wire branch circuit or MWBC....
answered May 7 at 5:39
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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6
No no no. A "self-grounding clip" is nothing important as far as your concerns about grounding. It doesn't help at all, and it doesn't really hinder either.
The purpose of a "self-grounding clip" is to resolve some minutae in Code. I assume you've removed a receptacle or switch at some point in your life... you know how there are 2 screws, top and bottom? ...
answered May 5 at 18:47
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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4
Self grounding will not be a problem and will be a positive. If you want to know if the boxes are grounded after installing try a plug in 3 light tester that has a GFCI test button, if the test button on the plug in tester works the boxes are grounded if it doesn’t work but the test reset on the GFCI works the boxes are not grounded. 2 wire is still legal ...
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Definitely advise your uncle to remove the bootleg ground, you don't really want to be touching the neutral wire every time you touch a metal component of a "grounded" metal appliance. If a tool or appliance experiences a fault and you can become the path to ground.
Do also encourage him to replace those outlets with GFCI outlets or protect with GFCI ...
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1 is against code
2 is allowed provided the correct stickers are applied ("GFCI protected" and "no equipment ground")
3&4 allowed and safe provided it is not a bootleg ground.
Ground and neutral is only allowed to be connected at the main panel. Disconnect all those bootleg grounds from the neutrals in all other places.
You can put the GFCI protection ...
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