Hey Electricians: GFCI Question/Problem

[jyl]

Originally Posted by gshase

I have been told by several electricians that the life span of a GFCI is about 10 years. After this they either trip easily or may stop tripping all together. I have a general comment about this in every report. The same goes for GFCI & AFCI breakers. I have also noticed that in 9-11year old homes there seem to be at least 2-3 GFCI outlets that are not functioning properly.

What!? No one knows this, I mean no normal homeowner knows he needs to test or replace his GFCI outlets and breakers every ten years.does this mean there are tens of millions of faulty GFCI outlets out there?

[dad911]

Originally Posted by jyl

What!? No one knows this, I mean no normal homeowner knows he needs to test or replace his GFCI outlets and breakers every ten years.does this mean there are tens of millions of faulty GFCI outlets out there?

Could be. Even more important, smoke detectors should be replaced every 10 years.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by jyl

What!? No one knows this, I mean no normal homeowner knows he needs to test or replace his GFCI outlets and breakers every ten years.does this mean there are tens of millions of faulty GFCI outlets out there?

Most home owners don't read. I was in the electrical biz when they came out in the 70s. From Leviton: It is recommended that GFCIs be tested monthly to ensure protected power is present.

And UI is solving it: Note that Underwriters Laboratories (UL) will require ALL GFCIs to be self-testing beginning in mid-2015. Self-Test GFCIs perform a periodic internal self-test to confirm that protected power is available.

Ian

[jyl]

Who the hell tests their outlets monthly? That's a defective product, in my view.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by jyl

Who the hell tests their outlets monthly? That's a defective product, in my view.

The better question is why is this even used? I know, in some areas of the house, it is necessary, but the building code has gotten so bad that the interpretation of the code has gone nuts. Places that never had GFI outlets now needed them. Why the hell do we need them inside the garage? I know, I know, we can argue until our faces turn blue and it is safer to have it then not, but we all lived without them near out kitchen counters, garages, powering our pool pumps. Don't get me started with AFCIs. There are lots of folks running outside tripping on breakers as we speak.

In my own house, I have taken out all GFIs in my garage and no AFCIs, problem solved. I think I will live just fine.

[Rtrorkt]

maybe rodents chewing through the buried cord and providing the leakage. Has happened on my low voltage buried lighting distribution

[RF5BPilot]

Second day.

The pump continues to work with the new grounded plug. No tripped breakers.

Has had plenty of time to build condensation in the submerged pump housing if that were the problem. So, it seems that moisture had worked it's way into the molded power cord/plug. Not a lot, but enough to trip the GFCI breaker.

So, cost me $45 for a replacement GFCI breaker (which I didn't need, but can't return). And a new plug, $6.

But a Whole Lot Better than $500+ to replace the pump.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Evans, Marv]

Great! Shows it pays off to be persistent when trying to solve problems. The moisture problem is what caused a buried chord I had for an outside light to short. I think I forgot to mention that initially.