John, it is so quick that it should trip before you could blink your eye or your heart makes a beat. I can remember seeing a demonstration of a prototype GFCI back in the 1960's and man did that device trip the circuit fast, it seemed instantaneous, no matter the distance from the actual ground fault's point of contact. The way lsst's electrician did the installation is the Cadillac way, of covering all the bases, everything from start to finish, is protected against a ground fault. But having a GFCI receptacle adjacent to the pond is all the NEC/CEC require, to protect a person from electrical shock injury/death. The latter, is of course, the less expensive way to do the installation. But it is equally effective in saving a life, if all conditions are met*. At a trip speed of less than 1/40th of a second from a current leakage of 5 milliamps the GFCI's internal trip circuit is reacting super fast, but you could, depending on the person and other circumstances,still feel a real "kick" from that 5millamps of current entering your body. Example. If you were up a ladder, you could easily fall off it, due to your reaction of that quick short shock and die from the fall. * If you are interested, you could read the two bottom paragraphs in this other article about GFCI safety, that I have linked below. "Horton" Here is a link that might be useful: GFCI Safety.

Thanks for the batch feed info. My plumber installed my parents' bath feed, just commented that they were hard to find (my mom said Lowes (?) only had the 1 model). Maybe we'll install one when the cheap builder model dies. My parents and I both have well/septic. I'm not sure about their old house (came with batch disposal, this was replacement) or code back then. My engineer said they frown on them, but he just sized the septic larger for it. My old house had one too and it was septic. One thing my mom discovered was that if you put potato peels down the disposal the starch hardens like concrete in the pipes. Also, don't use the gel packs in your DW if it's connected to the disposal b/c the plastic doesn't always dissolve completely and it clogs the disposal. We tend to throw vegetable peelings in compost, just use disposal for scraping plates b4 loading in DW.

I know that a 12/3 feed is fine for 2 GFCI circuits as long as there's no shared neutral beyond the GFCIs, so my interpretation is that we're talking about an unusual case. jmvd20, pharkus: Now I see what you're getting at. Running 12/3 from box to box to box and alternating use of red and black works fine, as long as there's a GFCI receptacle at each outlet, and we only ever connect to the load terminals, and that hadn't occurred to me. We end up buying a lot of GFCI receptacles, but it's still probably cheaper than that 20 amp double-pole breaker. It sounded to me like the circuit was intending to use just two GFCI receptacles (one for each of the "red" and "black" circuits in the original 12/3 feed), and then continue supplying the two circuits with downstream non-GFCI receptacles through that single box to box to box 12/3 feed (i.e. shared neutral) throughout the kitchen. jong357 even says "...using 2 GFCI outlets, not breakers. One at the head of each run". This sounds unconventional to me (though I'm not a pro), but it would work just fine (and ONLY) with a double-pole breaker, if I'm correct, because of the shared neutral continuing beyond the GFCI protection. (Also in this case, wouldn't the GFCI receptacles need to be avoided because they would trip on any load because of the shared neutral beyond them?) I suppose the cheapest and simplest would be 12/3 to GFCI receptacles, with 12/2 following the split of the two circuits, even if the 12/2s just ran alongside one another, because the downstreams could just use regular receptacles. I appreciate the responses and attention to detail. It's hard to express this stuff clearly without pictures sometimes, and I know you guys know the theory and what works and what doesn't. I'll also shut up soon to avoid creating a monster thread!

Holly, You gave incomplete information in your initial post which lead me to believe it was the furnace circuit board that was having the trouble. A carrier infinity system has different levels and different configuration of those levels. You posted back with only the model number of the outdoor unit, which is a variable speed infinity condenser with variable speed compressor. So with this type of unit you have circuit boards in the outdoor condenser to control the AC / DC inverter of the condensing unit and on the furnace you would also have a circuit board that controls the AC/DC inverter of the variable speed blower / or ECM motor. It's very rare for the furnace circuit board to fail on either a full variable speed motor or ECM type motor. Nearly always the motor itself fails. The circuit board for the outdoor unit has 2 heavy loads tied to it, number 1 the compressor, number 2 the condenser fan. The inverter for your outside condenser will generate heat ---a lot of heat. The hotter it is outside, the dirtier it gets the hotter it gets until something fails. In an inverter condenser this is most often the board. I can only assume at this point that it was the circuit board in the outdoor condenser that failed. Which if this is the case would make perfect sense. Other things (besides heat) that can effect electrical components: Loose connections. Electricity will take the path of least resistance. A loose connection is often the tightest when the unit is off. When the unit runs, current flows. There is heat in current. Given a loose connection the heat during operation is hotter than when the apparatus is off this gives expansion and contraction of that loose connection which leads to erratic operation. The expansion occurs while the unit runs, the current flow drops due to the electrical path being disrupted which will give you the feeling of 'brown out' activity. When in fact, it's merely poor wiring. ------------ LED Lighting: Some of this kind of lighting is very finicky in how it needs to be installed. Putting on dimmer switches can cause flickering and possibly even the glow you talk about. Certain LED manufacture's make lighting in which there are no changeable light bulbs. When the light fails you have to replace the entire fixture. Part of the reason for these types of fixtures is that LED bulbs can last a really long time. But manufacture's often stretch the truth in these circumstances as in they will tell you it will last 18 years when more often than not it's 5 or less years. It's still a long time compared to the older incandescent bulbs and a bit longer than the newer flourescent bulbs. An LED bulb doesn't require 120v to operate, where as the older incandescent needed 120v same as flourescent bulb. You have to understand this because the LED bulb itself often isn't what fails. It's the mechanism they use inside the bulb housing they use to drop the voltage from 120v to whatever the voltage requirements are for the LED bulb being used. This is why you have certain LED configurations that will run low volt lighting off a transformer to operate an LED lighting system. You can have mood lighting / every color of the rainbow / different colors for different rooms and so on. However, these kinds of lighting systems are very complex in how they operate and the joke: How many people does it take to change a light bulb? Is taken to new heights. These things are often sold to the home owner under the guise of being a smart home.