5 ms·

I had a GFCI installed in my 1930s built house the other week The circuit repeatedly tripped, so the electrician uninstalled it. To install the GFCI he would n

I had a GFCI installed in my 1930s built house the other week The circuit repeatedly tripped, so the electrician uninstalled it. To install the GFCI he would need to spend 1-2 days splitting circuits to find the leak(s) so instead of ~$40 + 1 hours labour it's potentially thousands of dollars

jacquesm 4y ago
That might still be worth tracing, you may have a fire risk or a risk of electrocution on your hand there. It really shouldn't happen. Those things are typically 30 or 50 mA and that's a lot of heat (12W worth) at 240V.
atoav 4y ago
Yep, that means somewhere there is current flowing through some pipe, some wall, something. And that is bad. 30mA is not much of a threshold, but it has been chosen because currents above that (or currents that flow longer than the 0,03s it should take maximum to trip an RCD will kill people. Not to speak of fire hazards. So, somewhere you have a thing, that could kill you, a firend, a loved one or whomever. And you decide to ignore it because money. Where I live, if something would happen this could land you in prison.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - atoav 4y ago
    Just FYI I am a certified electrical engineer and I do risk assessment as well, all the time. Certain things are "taking a risk" as in "there is sharp knife in the kitchen", others are just plain stupid like "one of the door knobs in this house is a knife". So the results of my risk assessment might just look a little different, because I am more familiar with the matter and the potential consequences than you might be. Best of luck to you.
- shawabawa3 4y ago
  > And you decide to ignore it because money Absolutely not. We will get it fixed, the electrician just didn't have the time at that point, he's coming back to find the leak
  - 98codes 4y ago
    Hopefully with the breaker for that circuit turned off in the meantime.
- danaris 4y ago
  > And you decide to ignore it because money. I mean...this doesn't seem to apply to the GP, but you do understand that there are many, many people in the US for whom the amount of money needed to install that whole-house GFCI would be fine...but the amount needed to track down the faulty wire and fix it to make the house genuinely safe would bankrupt them?
Johnny555 4y ago
Instead of spending thousands of dollars to fix the wiring, another option would be to spend hundreds of dollars installing GFCI outlets at every outlet instead of protecting the whole circuit with a GFCI breaker (or upstream GFCI outlet) But if I had wiring that was leaking enough current to trip a GFCI, I'd rather find the fault in the wiring. When I rewired an old house, the livingroom circuit kept tripping the GFCI breaker. It took a while to find, but apparently at a junction box, the bedroom circuit was connected to the livingroom neutral, so that neutral was connected to 2 circuits and was potentially overloaded.
- eatbitseveryday 4y ago
  Can’t find GFCI outlets for aluminum, which is one problem I have in certain areas of the home.
idiotsecant 4y ago
so....you just left a significant phase to ground fault in your house wiring? That you live in? That seems like monumentally bad decision making if so. Do you understand what this actually implies?

jacquesm 4y ago

That might still be worth tracing, you may have a fire risk or a risk of electrocution on your hand there. It really shouldn't happen. Those things are typically 30 or 50 mA and that's a lot of heat (12W worth) at 240V.

atoav 4y ago

Yep, that means somewhere there is current flowing through some pipe, some wall, something. And that is bad. 30mA is not much of a threshold, but it has been chosen because currents above that (or currents that flow longer than the 0,03s it should take maximum to trip an RCD will kill people. Not to speak of fire hazards. So, somewhere you have a thing, that could kill you, a firend, a loved one or whomever. And you decide to ignore it because money. Where I live, if something would happen this could land you in prison.

phpisthebest 4y ago
[flagged]
- atoav 4y ago
  Just FYI I am a certified electrical engineer and I do risk assessment as well, all the time. Certain things are "taking a risk" as in "there is sharp knife in the kitchen", others are just plain stupid like "one of the door knobs in this house is a knife". So the results of my risk assessment might just look a little different, because I am more familiar with the matter and the potential consequences than you might be. Best of luck to you.
shawabawa3 4y ago
> And you decide to ignore it because money Absolutely not. We will get it fixed, the electrician just didn't have the time at that point, he's coming back to find the leak
- 98codes 4y ago
  Hopefully with the breaker for that circuit turned off in the meantime.
danaris 4y ago
> And you decide to ignore it because money. I mean...this doesn't seem to apply to the GP, but you do understand that there are many, many people in the US for whom the amount of money needed to install that whole-house GFCI would be fine...but the amount needed to track down the faulty wire and fix it to make the house genuinely safe would bankrupt them?

Johnny555 4y ago

Instead of spending thousands of dollars to fix the wiring, another option would be to spend hundreds of dollars installing GFCI outlets at every outlet instead of protecting the whole circuit with a GFCI breaker (or upstream GFCI outlet) But if I had wiring that was leaking enough current to trip a GFCI, I'd rather find the fault in the wiring. When I rewired an old house, the livingroom circuit kept tripping the GFCI breaker. It took a while to find, but apparently at a junction box, the bedroom circuit was connected to the livingroom neutral, so that neutral was connected to 2 circuits and was potentially overloaded.

eatbitseveryday 4y ago
Can’t find GFCI outlets for aluminum, which is one problem I have in certain areas of the home.

idiotsecant 4y ago

so....you just left a significant phase to ground fault in your house wiring? That you live in? That seems like monumentally bad decision making if so. Do you understand what this actually implies?