Does GFI plug work with no ground wire?

[Kevin Ricks]

I am pretty sure the code says at least 12" deep for a 120V 20A GFCI circuit with UF cable. I think the OP is saying that his cable was less than 12" deep. Kevin

[Doug Miller]

Right, that is what the Code says.

Not how I read it at all. YMMV.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[Goedjn]

*IFF* you are willing to admit that you don't already know it, yes. The dangerous part is when people decide to just figure it out as they go.

[Doug Miller]

Utter nonsense. The real problem is that it was installed by someone who didn't know what he was doing. You don't have to be a professional electrician to install a receptacle correctly.

[snip]

See if you can find the clause in your homeowner's policy that says that.

Uh-huh. Riiiiiight.

Did you forget to take your meds this morning?

Well, isn't that interesting.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[msterspy]

[msterspy]

[Chris Lewis]

According to Olaf :

It would, if the ground was continuous back to the panel. It isn't in a GFI in a groundless circuit. Which is why the NEC/CEC _insists_ that you don't connect the ground prongs of outlets downstream of a GFI on a groundless circuit to _anything_ (especially including other outlets).

[Chris Lewis]

According to Jeff Wisnia :

Actually, it is all they detect.

Because the current flowing in the black and white wires isn't balanced, some of the current that should be going thru the neutral is going down the ground wire. Even if _nothing_ is turned on in the circuit in question, there'll often be enough current flow (due to slight differences in voltage between neutral and ground) to trip it - an implicit ground loop.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Chris, my question was rhetorical, leading into the link I posted to Goldwasser's page:

If you read that link, you'll note that the GFCI actually induces a small voltage onto both the hot and neutral leads with a *second* toroidal transformer. Even with "nothing turned on", it's that voltage which produces an inbalanced current through the principal ground fault detection toroid if the neutral lead is shorted to ground "downstream" of the GFCI.

Pretty clever I think.

Jeff

[HorneTD]

Doug I'm not trying to be quarrelsome when I say that when any home owner does anything in their home that violates the law that act is not covered by the homes insurance. An insurance contract is a "contract of utmost good faith." The parties to the contract are required by the nature of the contract to scrupulously obey the law. It is considered a legal absurdity to try to insure against the consequences of your own unlawfully act.

The upshot of all that is that if the local or state government has adopted an electric code and requirements for permits and inspections, and the insured violates that law, and that violation results in a loss, that loss is not covered by the insurance because it would be insurance on a deliberate and unlawful act on the part of the insured.

Just as there are basic elements to any contract that are required to make that contract enforceable at law there are also basic rules about an insurance contract that are not written into the contract itself. Expecting your insurance carrier to pay for a loss caused by your own unlawful wiring is just as ridiculous as expecting the insurance to pay the loss caused by a meth amphetamine cooking operation that burns down the cookers home. "For he who seeks equity must do equity. You must come before the bar with clean hands."

It is true that many such losses are paid because the insurer never learns that the cause of the loss was the insureds unlawful act but if they do discover it they can, and indeed have, walk away from the loss. I am only one of many thousands of firefighters in the US and I was deposed in two such cases. IN both cases the home owner had to absorb the loss. The violations of code in both cases were very obvious and had been noted in the fire cause and origin report.

-- Tom H

[Doug Miller]

I'm not disputing that - but did you read what that fool wrote? He'd have us believe that for a homeowner to do *anything* at all to the home's electrical system, whether Code-compliant or not, would void the insurance coverage.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[Red Cloud©]

It was a sarcastic troll. Do a whois search on the domain name used in his email address. It does not exist.

rusty redcloud

[HorneTD]

Yes, your right. He overstates the risk in rather reckless terms.

I only wanted to point out that you can in fact suffer an uninsured loss if you do your own electrical work while failing to comply with adopted code and that unlawful work causes a loss.

I do that to inform people of the risk of an uninsured loss rather than to try and intimidate people out of doing there own work. I work with sweat equity projects all the time and I support the right of responsible home owners to work on their own homes when they are willing to take the time to learn to do it right.

-- Tom H

[Chris Lewis]

According to Jeff Wisnia :

Yes, quite. Thanks for drawing my attention to that.