That does it. I'm taking out the GFI's and replacing them with regular plugs. I'm tired of shutting off a fan in one room and the TV, DVR and Receiver dying in another room because of a touchy GFI. These things are worthless.
Don't be too hasty defeating a safety item. Try another GFCI (known good, hopefully new) in that location, and if the problem persists, better start looking for bad grounds, back stabber outlets or other funky wiring problems. Reliability of newer GFCI's is very good these days. Good luck.
Before you eliminate your GFCI outlet(?) protection everywhere by replacing the GFCI with a standard receptacle...consider changing how the circuit is wired.
Sounds like you have a daisy chain of receptacles connected to the LOAD terminals on the GFCI... connect them to LINE terminals instead OR wire up pigtail style.
Now all of the "down stream receptacles" are no longer GFCI protected......installed additional GCFI outlets only where needed.
Should eliminate nuisance trips, plus any trips wil occur at the point of us.
Have you considered that the GFI might actually be functioning properly and that there is a problem with one of your appliances? As others have mentioned the newer GFI's are better and newer appliances have higher tolerances for leakage to ground. You can also change the wiring of the GFI so that receptacles downstream that do not need GFI protection can not be affected.
I have noticed that if you just plug something in and you get a little spark because it's on, the GFCI will trip. Same goes if a switch is turned on or off. Any little spark and it trips. That's not safety, that stupidity.
Perhaps it's time to consider that either you have GFCI's that are overly sensitive or that you have some other problem. GFCI's can trip from a motor load, which is one reason they are not recommended for refrigerators. However, I haven't seen any of mine tripping from routine things that set yours off, like turning on a switch to routine lights or loads. You should realize that with millions of them installed, if they were behaving anything like yours, their would be problems all the time. As an example, I routinely use power tools outside on GFCI and that doesn't cause a trip.
That shouldn't happen because a GFCI has a time delay that varies with the amount of leakage current -- a big leak will make will make it trip immediately, a small leak may not trip it for several seconds. UL standard 943 allows about 10 seconds for 4mA leakage, 0.3 second for about 250 mA. See page 4 of this document:
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I had problems with one GFCI because the wiring in the circuit was pretty loose, and another GFCI was bad because the false tripping stopped after it was replaced.
I wouldn't say GFCIs are worthless because I was once shocked badly enough to cause one to trip. I might have been killed if the circuit had lacked GFCI protection. BTW that circuit has the overhead fluorescent lamp wired into it permanently, and there's no false tripping when that lamp is turned on or off, even though fluorescents put out big surges when turned on or off.
I wired all my kids bedrooms this way. I realize there may be a few 'false alarms' but to save one of the kids accidently getting shocked or worse it's worth it.
Why not just get a single GFCI breaker for that circuit instead of dubbing around with GFCI plugs? The ones behind beds or cabinets you can't set the god damn red light when they trip.
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