Electrical code Compliance - one GFI receptacle for three outlets?

Author

one GFI receptacle for three outlets?

Richard

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

I would appreciate some feedback from the experts.
My sister's house had two bathrooms with a dead receptacle in each.
Everything else in the house worked. Finally she showed me a GFI
receptacle in the carport. It was also dead. When I reset it all
three worked. Does this use of a GFI receptacle provide meaningful
protection to two distant rooms? Is this even legal (Georgia)?

Thanks,
Richard

hrhofmann@att.net

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

It probably does provide protection. One way to find out is to plug a
power cord into the bathroom outlet and then carefully drop the hot end
of the cord into a sink of water. If the GFI truips, it is working ok.
It has probably been retrofitted to provide protection after the fact
of the origianl wiring. THe alternative is to put a GFI in every
outlet in the bathrooms. I have a couple of GFI's in my circuit
-breaker box to protect the circuits that feed our bathrooms since our
house was wired in 1958 before anyone even knew about GFI's in the
residential sense. OOur bathroom outlets are not separate outlets, but
the ones built into lighting fistures, so I had little choice.

Perhaps someone else knows if this is legal for new construction, but
for older wiring, it is much better than no protection at all.

H. R. Hofmann

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

> Does this use of a GFI receptacle provide meaningful

quote:

> protection to two distant rooms? Is this even legal (Georgia)?

Yes, it provides protection, but no, it doesn't meet the code (NEC). Not
because you are using downstream gfi protection, but because of the
dedicated circuiting required for bathroom receptacles. To comply, the
carport receptacle needs to be on a different circuit.

The Real Tom

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

On 12 Mar 2005 15:07:14 -0800, "Richard" <beezoboar@hotmail.com>
wrote:

quote:

>I would appreciate some feedback from the experts.
>My sister's house had two bathrooms with a dead receptacle in each.
>Everything else in the house worked. Finally she showed me a GFI
>receptacle in the carport. It was also dead. When I reset it all
>three worked. Does this use of a GFI receptacle provide meaningful
>protection to two distant rooms? Is this even legal (Georgia)?
>
>Thanks,
>Richard

All references are from the 2002 NEC(still in effect) and are
summaries and option, so you need to read for yourself:

I believe it's legal because of 2002NEC 110.3(B) if the manufacture
said it's ok. Plus, 2002NEC 406.3(d)3 explains how a gfci can be used
to protect downstream receptacles even though the case referenced is
with ungrounded system.

Now as for doing it, man no. My story, I found a non-gfci receptacle
in my garage, figuring my house was built in 93, and not being familar
with 93 codes, it wasn't protected. So I popped in a gfci tester to
verify this, it triped. The receptacle was dead. It took me about a
1/3 hour to find the actual GFCI protection device. The real pain is
how it was wired. The GFCI was in my basement, and it supplied my
outside from receptacle, garage, and master bath. Not happy with the
fact that a nusance trip can cause you to have to go up and down two
flights of stairs to fix. I plan on setuing up each receptacle as
it's own gfci device, so I wouldn't do it if I wired my own house.

hth, even with the babble portion. ;)

tom

The Real Tom

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 03:46:30 -0500, <rieker5.nospam.ever@hotmail.com>
wrote:

quote:

>
> Yes, it provides protection, but no, it doesn't meet the code (NEC). Not
>because you are using downstream gfi protection, but because of the
>dedicated circuiting required for bathroom receptacles. To comply, the
>carport receptacle needs to be on a different circuit.
>

You don't know how many times I've heard violated. I know anyone can
read 210.10(c)3, very clearly, but some have interpeted it, that only
one bathroom circuit needs to run no matter how many bathrooms(even
though speaks singular circuit per singular bathroom) since it uses
receptacles in the plural sense. Add in the Exception many
electricians think they have artistic license feed miscellanious
receptalces.

tom

David Axt

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

"Richard" <beezoboar@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1110668834.271932.45910@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

quote:

> I would appreciate some feedback from the experts.
> My sister's house had two bathrooms with a dead receptacle in each.
> Everything else in the house worked. Finally she showed me a GFI
> receptacle in the carport. It was also dead. When I reset it all
> three worked. Does this use of a GFI receptacle provide meaningful
> protection to two distant rooms? Is this even legal (Georgia)?
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
>

Let's talk common sense here. I have rarely run a "protected" outlet from a
GFCI outlet. I always install the GFCI outlet where it needs to be
installed.

The reason is simple. When the thing trips I want to be able to reset it
right at the outlet not at the breaker box or "upstream".

I had some weird outlets that would not work in my house. Finally I found
that they were "down stream" on a GFCI outlet....and they were each on
another floor!

Even in my kitchen the outlets that are 3 feet from eachother are still
individually protected.

David

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:37:17 -0800 David Axt <daxt@bassettiarch.com> wrote:

| Let's talk common sense here. I have rarely run a "protected" outlet from a
| GFCI outlet. I always install the GFCI outlet where it needs to be
| installed.
|
| The reason is simple. When the thing trips I want to be able to reset it
| right at the outlet not at the breaker box or "upstream".
|
| I had some weird outlets that would not work in my house. Finally I found
| that they were "down stream" on a GFCI outlet....and they were each on
| another floor!
|
| Even in my kitchen the outlets that are 3 feet from eachother are still
| individually protected.

How often do you have ground fault events?

The only place I would consider it necessary to have a reset button close
to the outlet is in the bathroom.

The only time I ever had a GFCI trip when I wasn't trying to trip one
actually tripped 4 of them at the same time.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Axt

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

quote:

> How often do you have ground fault events?
>
> The only place I would consider it necessary to have a reset button close
> to the outlet is in the bathroom.
>
> The only time I ever had a GFCI trip when I wasn't trying to trip one
> actually tripped 4 of them at the same time.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

quote:

> | Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/

http://ham.org/ |

quote:

> | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/

http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |

quote:

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

When I bought my house it took me 6 months to figure out why two outlets
downstairs did not work. They were tied into a GFCI upstairs.

You tripped 4 GFCI outlets? You are not allowed to have another GFCI outlet
in line with another GFCI.

David

Roy Q.T.

2005-06-17, 11:29 pm

I am working in an old but fairly strong apartment complex (all circuits
in emt) yesterday I started replacing 2 prong receptacles with new 3
prong coded recept.s throughout the entire apt.

when i got to the kitchen it had all but one of the new type recept.s
(clouted with paint of course, you know :-( and no gf protection on the
outlet close to the sink on the counter top wall.

when installing the GFCI i found a feed through conductor loop, my
options were to just hook it into the line side and be done with , or,
cut the loop and attach the hot conductors proceeding from the break pan
and the contiguos conductors to the load side, it so happens the
washer/dryer goes in the same small Kitch and now I have that receptacle
covered as well., of course i checked to make sure the seperate load
conductors did not continue else where in the apt. but it all worked out
confined just fine to the kitchen..

The Bathroom on the other hand is a nightmere ~ No GFCI and a
switch/receptacle silver plated on the entrance wall.

I plan to address that with a GFCI Breaker at the panel, tag it & leave
it as (scary looking) simple it is . well maybe I'll replace the plate
also with one of the nice wooden ones we're using through-out.

I guess if one has good wiring/trougleshooting skills one could make the
wires do what one wants rather than have them dictate & discomfort ones
components. hahn?

Roy Q.T.

Jerry Shelton

2005-06-17, 11:31 pm

Yes this is legal and used in many homes. A GFCI receptacle has line
side(incoming voltage) and load side(outgoing voltage) terminals. The wire
connected to the load side terminals and everything downstream from that
GFCI receptacle is protected by that GFCI receptacle. Any questions please
reply and I will check back.

Thanks
Jerry(union wireman)
"Richard" <beezoboar@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1110668834.271932.45910@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

quote:

>I would appreciate some feedback from the experts.
> My sister's house had two bathrooms with a dead receptacle in each.
> Everything else in the house worked. Finally she showed me a GFI
> receptacle in the carport. It was also dead. When I reset it all
> three worked. Does this use of a GFI receptacle provide meaningful
> protection to two distant rooms? Is this even legal (Georgia)?
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
>
>

LinkBot