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Things to Know About Your Home 7:GFCI's

By
Home Inspector with Home Inspection and Investor Services, Clayton

             What are the things that you don't know about your home? They are all the important things that you don't know are important until you need to know them.  Now is that clear to everyone. 

            Normally, if you have lived in you home for a while you know how to reset your GFCI (s).  But if it is a new home or it has just been remodeled then you may not.

            Did you know that you can string two or more GFCI's together? This means that if something happens at one outlet the reset would have to be pushed in another location.  I'm going to use a real house as an example here.  There are 2 upstairs (2 full baths) GFCI's and 3 downstairs (1 half bath and 2 in the kitchen), but they aren't all GFCI type outlets.  Some of them look like normal outlets, but they are wired together.  The secondary outlet (the one that looks normal) will be wired to the one that looks like a normal GFCI.

            Some personal care products are well known for tripping GFCI's especially the older style.  So the first day it happened as one of the kids were getting ready for school

it was difficult to find which one had actually tripped (due mainly to the time limit imposed by a teenage girl standing in the bathroom with dripping wet hair and only a half hour to get ready). 

            If you have a GFCI in one bath and none in another then it is likely that the bath without one is connected to the other.  Check the reset button on the primary if the secondary outlet is no longer powered and that should be the correction to your problem. 

            For more information visit http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/99.html.

            Now, maybe you did know all that and if that is the case I apologize for repeating it.  If you didn't then you now know something about your house you didn't know before.

Jack Gilleland

Home Inspection Services, Clayton

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Steven L. Smith
King of the House Home Inspection, Inc. - Bellingham, WA
Bellingham WA Home Inspector

Jack,

I had a house once where I never found a GFCI reset. Normally I check for resets before testing, and I did there. But the reset in the master bath, which I thought would be tied to the hall bath was not. I searched for 30 minutes and finally just told the realtors that I never found it.

Nov 22, 2010 08:12 AM
Ted Tyrrell
RE/MAXCamosun (Chatterton) - Victoria, BC
Selling Homes in Beautiful Victoria

Jack,

good to know. We once had an outside string of lights that had gone out. We couldn't figure it out for several days until I noticed the GFCI had been tripped in the upstairs bathroom. When I reset it, my wife said, "hey the outside lights are on."

We found that our 2 year old grandaughter, when sitting on the bathroom counter getting her hair dried by grandma, had pushed the trip button.

Nice Aussies, by the way.

Nov 22, 2010 10:22 AM
James Quarello
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC - Wallingford, CT
Connecticut Home Inspector

Like Steve I had a house where I could not find the gfci to reset. The homeowners knew right where it was, so no complaints.

Nov 22, 2010 10:50 AM
Valerie Osterhoudt
Johnson Real Estate, Inc. - Cromwell, CT
ABR, Cromwell, CT Real Estate ~ 860.883.8889

Jack.. GFCI's being strung together?  No I never heard of this.  But then again this isn't my field of expertise.  Yes, I do know how to reset them.. at least the ones I have.  I'll need to take a closer look at the newer ones.

Nov 22, 2010 11:00 AM
Not a real person
San Diego, CA

With just 36 days left in 2010, Zoey the Cool Cat and I just wanted to stop by and wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. Hope it’s a great one, with lots of fun and food with family and friends!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 24, 2010 05:16 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

It is not uncommon here to see many GFI's downstream from another, like 6 or 7.  But there is no rhyme or reason to the placement of the first!  I have seen it in the garage!  And the bathrooms follow on from there...

Nov 27, 2010 12:30 AM
Wilbur Lloyd
AR Home Inspection Service of New Jersey - Ridgefield Park, NJ

I love getting into a house and triping the GFI then having to go on the hunt for the reset. Sometimes I ask the client to help play the game too ...

Dec 29, 2010 02:55 PM