Ground Fault circuit breaker

[Rob Mitchell]

I am having a problem with my GFI circuit breaker. It trips. Now perhaps it is working correctly, but I'm not sure. The circuit controls the central vac in the garage (and a couple of outlets in the garage and exterior of the house.)

I was told by a reliable electrician that one problem might be leakage due to build up of dust in the vacuum, or in the outlet boxes. I removed them all and blew the dust out, and took the vacuum apart and cleaned it well.

The problem may have gotten better, but it is still there.

A new breaker is pretty expensive and may not be the problem. How can I troubleshoot this? Is there anything that I can plug in to an outlet to determine if 'this one is the problem'?

Rob

[Doug Miller]

What's plugged into those outlets?

Have you checked the outdoor outlets for moisture infiltration or condensation?

[RBM]

[toller]

I had a GFCI breaker go bad last year, so it happens. I replaced it with a standard breaker and a GFCI outlet. Haven't had any problems since.

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

BTW, a good electrician should have had a gfci tester, not the $7 job, but the one where you can dial in the 'leakage' to see if it's tripping at the right set point.

Now GFCI's are suppose to trip so we need to also know what is also occuring when it trips(example, running the vacuum, or plugging in something).

hth,

tom @

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

Problem is it might be a receptacle that went bad, not the breaker.

later,

tom @

[John B]

I agree. BTW ...Is the problem more common after it rains? Classic t/s is to divide and conquer. Disconnect central vac and observe. Perhaps disconnect all load lines from GFCI c/b ... and observe.

[Rob Mitchell]

Rob

[Rob Mitchell]

Good points. The circuit trips sometimes when the vac is running and other times when it's not. Central vacs in the garage must have this problem all the time because when you don't change the can dust blows into the motor housing and in a garage in Canada (cold, wet 11 months of the year, 40C 100% humidity the other month) that dust gets pretty wet and stringy and probably conducts pretty well.

Rob

[Jmagerl]