Can't wire other outlets to GFCI Load?

[neel2008]

In my garage I have a string of outlets on one wall. (like 6 outlets on this circuit). I am planning on adding a small sink to the wall and two of the outlets would be within the required distance of needing gfci protection. One is the first outlet on the circuit coming from the box. So I wire it up, romex from box on a standard 15 amp breaker, right to GFCI LINE, no other stops before this. Outlet will work fine, hit the test button to trip it, then reset and it works again like it should.

Now I should be able to hook the remaining outlets in the circuit to the LOAD part of the gfci and those outlets would be protected as well right?

If I connect the rest of the circuit to the LOAD, it pops the GFCI and kills all the outlets as soon as I throw the breaker. What gives?

Right now I hooked the remaining outlets to the second ports of the LINE so they would work, yes I know this leaves the other outlets unprotected, but I wanted to test them to make sure there was not any other problem with my circuit. I went through and tested each outlet with a multimeter for voltage between power and ground and power and neutral, no weird readings there and all the outlets work fine and breaker does not trip. Also double checked that the wiring on each of the outlets to make sure the black and white wires didn't get switched on one somehow, and all outlets are hooked up the ground wire.

Only other thing is this is a detached garage so the panel in the garage has the neutral to ground bar removed so that the neutral and ground bus bars are separated in the box, does this screw something up? I don't claim to be a wiring expect, did I do something wrong?

 

[Mustang51js]

Are you sure you have the right nuetral hooked up to the line side. I would open up each outlet and disconnect the black wires, then hook each one up one at a time until it trips the gfci. Could be a wire hitting ground in the other outlet. Or you could replace the two outlets by water with gfci and just hook them both up to the line. A lot of people do that so it just trips that outlet and doesn't kill power to the others down line.

 

[volleyball]

Maybe you have a bad GFCI but more likely you have a situation where its doing its job. Are you following the wire hook up diagram? If all looks ok then add the next outlet alone and the next till you get a trip. That will tell you where your problem is. Could be a loose strand on the power wire.

 

[neel2008]

Are you sure you have the right nuetral hooked up to the line side. I would open up each outlet and disconnect the black wires, then hook each one up one at a time until it trips the gfci. Could be a wire hitting ground in the other outlet. Or you could replace the two outlets by water with gfci and just hook them both up to the line. A lot of people do that so it just trips that outlet and doesn't kill power to the others down line.

yea maybe I should double check again, and do them one at a time and see what happens, If I can't find a problem, I suppose Ill just get another GFCI outlet like you said. Ill start out just wiring one normal outlet to the load side and see if it trips and go from there.....

Maybe you have a bad GFCI but more likely you have a situation where its doing its job. Are you following the wire hook up diagram? If all looks ok then add the next outlet alone and the next till you get a trip. That will tell you where your problem is. Could be a loose strand on the power wire.

Yea I followed the diagram like it showed on the instructions. Well the first half of the instructions and going by their diagram because the paper had like 4 steps in English on one side and 7 steps in Spanish on the other so its like they forgot to do the rest of the English wording. lol But pretty much regular breaker to GFCI LINE then, GFCI LOAD to rest of outlets strung together....and it trips right away, but no problem if I hook the rest of the string up to the LINE side as well. Only thing I can think of is I have a ground and a neutral in one of my outlet boxes that are touching, Ill hook them up one at a time to see if I can pinpoint a problem in one of the outlets.

 

[MTW]

If there are no faults between ground and neutral in the downstream wiring, it's likely to be leaky equipment connected to the circuit. Try the garage door operator, I've had these nuisance trip a GFCI, and the control circuit is always connected. Same goes for any other appliance connected to the circuit. A replacement GFCI will just do the same thing, what it is made for, tripping on leakage.

 

[teamextreme]

Are you sure you have the right nuetral hooked up to the line side.

If he had the neutrals swapped it wouldn't work when he connects just the first GFI as he describes. He said just connecting the first GFI works fine. My money is on a bare ground wire touching the neutral screw terminal in one of the downstream outlets. That will usually trip a GFI.

 

[Highbeam]

As far as concept.... I too have a detached garage, subpanel, with separate ground and neutral bars. Modern four wire install inspected and permitted in teh last couple of years. I have runs of outlets down each 60 foot wall of the shop with separate circuits for each wall. The romex runs from the 20 amp breaker to a GFCI outlet "line" side, then the remaining 8+ outlets downstream of that GFCI are all regular outlets and wired to the "Load " side of the single GFCI. I have no problems with trippage.

I have found that the GFCI outlets are expensive and they consume power, like 6 watts, when just setting there so I limit the number of GFCIs in the system.

 

[neel2008]

If he had the neutrals swapped it wouldn't work when he connects just the first GFI as he describes. He said just connecting the first GFI works fine. My money is on a bare ground wire touching the neutral screw terminal in one of the downstream outlets. That will usually trip a GFI.

Just to report back in case anyone searches for this, you hit the nail on the head, when I popped the 2nd regular outlet in the string out, I saw it, the ground got smashed against a neutral screw head, repositioned it, put everything back together and all of my outlets are now working fine off the gfci LOAD terminals. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Norcal]

The GFCI did it's job.

 

[teamextreme]

Just to report back in case anyone searches for this, you hit the nail on the head, when I popped the 2nd regular outlet in the string out, I saw it, the ground got smashed against a neutral screw head, repositioned it, put everything back together and all of my outlets are now working fine off the gfci LOAD terminals. Thanks for the help guys!

Glad you got it figured out
Now where's the icon for patting myself on the back

 

[Mustang51js]

Glad you got it figured out
Now where's the icon for patting myself on the back

The answer was posted before that lol

 

[neel2008]

The answer was posted before that lol

Yea Mustang, sorry, I forgot that was in your post as well. Both of you get a then. lol