Demiurge
New Member
This past weekend, I was replacing a light switch for a friend's mom. Easy enough, done it a million times. As I'm wrapping up, the mom asks me to look at a GFI outlet in a bathroom, on a different circuit. Pretty easy to diagnose: outlet had burn marks on one of the vertical prongs. Yeah, that's not a good sign.
Background: About a year ago, she had some work done, which included the addition of this outlet. No idea what work was done, by whom, or what his/her certification/licensure is. The outlet went dead shortly after the work was done. The bathroom is a jack and jill, connecting a hallway to an addition (the addition is much older than the work done one year ago).
After grabbing a 15A GFI, I disconnect power and take the old GFI off. The LINE and LOAD are both connected to the LINE. Never seen that before. Wire nut one set of wires (12-2 x2 coming in, no grounds), turn on power, check to see if what's not nutted is live (handy voltmeter, of course). It is. Turn off power, nut those two, turn on power, check the other set. Dead. Perfect, LINE and LOAD identified. Wire up the GFI, turn on power, nothing. GFI won't reset. Ugh.
Turn off power, nut the LOAD, turn on power. GFI resets and works beautifully. Outlets down the circuit? Dead, of course.
Figuring that, while it isn't shown in the instructions, maybe there isn't an issue with LINE and LOAD going together. Turn off power, wire up the new GFI like the old one was, turn on power. GFI won't reset. Dead. Outlets down the circuit? Perfectly functional.
So I turned off the power, nutted LINE and LOAD, and re-mounted the GFI with nothing attached to it. She's used to the GFI not working, so another week won't kill anyone. Everything works perfectly. Well, except the disconnected GFI.
Why does the GFI hate me? Knowing that it checks for an imbalance in amperage across the hot and neutral, it's pretty easy to see there's a problem there. Knowing that the incoming hot and neutral will power the GFI with no LOAD attached, it seems to me the problem is further down circuit. Somewhere. Ugh.
Any thoughts or ideas? I'm tempted to just keep the current setup and add pigtails for the GFI...but it seems there's still a problem going uncorrected. The outlets down circuit don't need GFI protection, so I may pigtail it anyway. But again, it seems there's still some sort of issue here. How would you approach it, and what tests would you run to accurately diagnose the problem? I'm pretty handy with the basics, but this one has me stumped.
Background: About a year ago, she had some work done, which included the addition of this outlet. No idea what work was done, by whom, or what his/her certification/licensure is. The outlet went dead shortly after the work was done. The bathroom is a jack and jill, connecting a hallway to an addition (the addition is much older than the work done one year ago).
After grabbing a 15A GFI, I disconnect power and take the old GFI off. The LINE and LOAD are both connected to the LINE. Never seen that before. Wire nut one set of wires (12-2 x2 coming in, no grounds), turn on power, check to see if what's not nutted is live (handy voltmeter, of course). It is. Turn off power, nut those two, turn on power, check the other set. Dead. Perfect, LINE and LOAD identified. Wire up the GFI, turn on power, nothing. GFI won't reset. Ugh.
Turn off power, nut the LOAD, turn on power. GFI resets and works beautifully. Outlets down the circuit? Dead, of course.
Figuring that, while it isn't shown in the instructions, maybe there isn't an issue with LINE and LOAD going together. Turn off power, wire up the new GFI like the old one was, turn on power. GFI won't reset. Dead. Outlets down the circuit? Perfectly functional.
So I turned off the power, nutted LINE and LOAD, and re-mounted the GFI with nothing attached to it. She's used to the GFI not working, so another week won't kill anyone. Everything works perfectly. Well, except the disconnected GFI.
Why does the GFI hate me? Knowing that it checks for an imbalance in amperage across the hot and neutral, it's pretty easy to see there's a problem there. Knowing that the incoming hot and neutral will power the GFI with no LOAD attached, it seems to me the problem is further down circuit. Somewhere. Ugh.
Any thoughts or ideas? I'm tempted to just keep the current setup and add pigtails for the GFI...but it seems there's still a problem going uncorrected. The outlets down circuit don't need GFI protection, so I may pigtail it anyway. But again, it seems there's still some sort of issue here. How would you approach it, and what tests would you run to accurately diagnose the problem? I'm pretty handy with the basics, but this one has me stumped.
