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Electrical Wiring

GFCI outlet, am I an idiot?

13 years ago

I was at my elderly mother's house the other day while she had a couple of handy men fixing a few electrical things around the house. Mostly replacing old outdoor light fixtures, but also installing some GFCI outlets around her new deck. These GFCI outlets were daisy chained off of an existing older outdoor non-GFCI outlet like this:

breaker ---- non-GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet

After seeing this done I told one of the handymen that they should have replaced the old non-GFCI outlet with a GFCI outlet and let it do ground fault protection for the downstream outlets. The guy then became very upset with me, one of those how dare I tell him how to do his job, I thought he was going to attack me for a moment, he insisted that a GFCI outlet anywhere on the chain would protect all outlets on the chain, has been doing this for 30 years, etc. This does not pass my common sense knowledge of electrical circuits, but given he had such a strong reaction, I thought I would ask here, was he right, am I an idiot?

thanks Ike

p.s. its not like I am "so no-nothing kid" telling him he did something wrong, I am in my 40's only a few years younger than he is.

Featured Answer

bus_driver

13 years ago

30 years might mean one week's experience 1560 times.

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Comments (8)

joed
13 years ago
A GFCI receptacle will only protect other devices connected its LOAD terminals. If you want to protect other devices the GFCI must be at the beginning of the circuit. From your description I think you were correct.
smithy123
13 years ago
well, i know how handymen are. they used these blue crimp connector things in my grandparents's uc lights and told them it was perfectly legal. he also used 5-15 recs, but my grandparents told him, on my reccomendaiton, to replace them.
YOU ARE RIGHT!

Here is a link that might be useful: connectors
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I thought I replied to this post earlier today, but I guess it did not go through. The wiring for the receptacle and the light beyond it sound similar to what I have run across a couple of times in my house. If the power is running to the light switch, then they may have run 14/3 from the switch to the 1st outlet and used the white/black pair to power the receptacle, and the white/red pair passes through the receptacle to provide power to the light that is beyond. The only odd part is that usually you only need 14/2 from the receptacle to the light to make this work, but you said they had two reds nutted together in the box. You can use a similar scheme in reverse if you have power at the light, then 14/3 from the light to the receptacle, and then 14/2 running to the switch. The red wire is just used as a traveler that passes through the receptacle to provide a switch loop from the light switch to the light. I was very confused the first time I found this type of wiring scheme, since it looked like I was working with a 3 way switch circuit. However, it seemed that it was just a way to save running one more 12/2 cable from the light switch to the light. Bruce.
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"Only the breaker would, if enough total current was passing." Well, sort of. Just to dispel any possible confusion: A GFI breaker implements two functions. The first is overcurrent protection. The breaker trips if the total current drawn from the circuit exceeds the breaker's rating. For branch circuits this is normally 15 or 20 amps. The more it exceeds the breaker's rating, the faster the breaker trips. The second is ground fault protection. The breaker trips if it detects that the current is asymmetrical across the power line. The amount of asymmetrical (ground fault) current that trips the GFI part of the breaker is MUCH lower than the current that trips the overcurrent part . (Confused yet?) To explain this second function: it's not 100% accurate to describe it this way, but it's easier (I hope) to understand if you think of the electricity as going out the hot side of the receptacle and coming back in the neutral side. The GFI monitors both of these. If the amount of current coming back is less than the amount going out, some of it must be "leaking" to ground. That leakage might be going through a person or animal, risking shock or electrocution. So when the GFI sees that, it instantly opens, shutting off the power. With most GFIs, an imbalance (fault current) of 5 milliamps (0.005 amps) is enough to cause a trip.
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wayne440
13 years ago
A GFCI outlet can be installed to protect wiring that is beyond it, but it will do nothing for outlets that are between the GFCI and the source. BTW, don't let those "handymen" anywhere near your genset.
smithy123
13 years ago
''BTW, don't let those "handymen" anywhere near your genset.''
WHY? WHAT DID THEY DO WRONG, AGAIN?
LET ME REPHRASE THAT, WHAT DIDNT THEY DO WRONG?
isaac-1
Original Author
13 years ago
thanks for confirming what I thought. It is sad there are people out there like this with years and years of experience doing things wrong.

Ike
mike_kaiser_gw
13 years ago
he insisted that a GFCI outlet anywhere on the chain would protect all outlets on the chain, has been doing this for 30 years, etc.

Oh, he's wrong. It's only the downstream outlets that are protected. But what's more interesting is if he actually believed that...

breaker ---- non-GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet

Why spend money on a second GFCI receptacle on the same circuit?
smithy123
13 years ago
EVEN I know hou to wire a gfi, and it is pretty sad that the instructions are in the box. i wired how many by now?

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