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GFCI curious question

65ranchero

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My wife and I were visiting her sister who has a house in PA.
Being the 1st visit to the house I was giving it the once over.
While in the kitchen I noticed every receptacle in the kitchen had its own GFCI including a dual receptacle.
Is there a specific reasoning for this or is it just over kill?
Just curious!
 
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Walkers

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The house was probably built without them and somebody thinking they were upgrading installed one in every outlet in lieu of using one chained to all the outlets.
 
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65ranchero

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The house was probably built without them and somebody thinking they were upgrading installed one in every outlet in lieu of using one chained to all the outlets.
House was built in 1987.
And there has been at least 4 owners not including SIL so maybe it was due to upgrades from previous sales?
 

acer66

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We had a customer once that did something like that.

Every box had its own gfci and was only protecting a receptacle in the same box if any.

Reason for him was he did not want to trip any other receptacle besides the one he was using.
 

RAS61

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Unless they're all on their own circuit it's overkill. If on the same circuit only the first one needs a GFCI and the one's downstream are protected, and in a new GFCI's packaging/box you'll find stickers to label regular outlets downstream as "GFCI Protected"
 

sparky 1971

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I wasn't in the trade in 87 so I don't know if gfci's were required in a kitchen then for sure. If they were, it would have only been the receptacles within six feet of the sink. Somewhere along the way, someone heard about how dangerous it is to not have gfci protection and swapped everything out.

It could have had a home inspection and the inspector told the buyers they would all die if a licensed electrician didn't install gfci's in the kitchen prior to the sale. The electrician just put gfci's everywhere instead of figuring out the line side. (I'm guilty of that).

It could be that someone **** lived there and wanted everything to match or didn't want to have to reset the gfci behind the cookie jar when the coffee pot is the one not working.

Or, possible, but not probable, every receptacle is it's own circuit. I built a house for myself in 2006, sold it and moved to the country in 2016. The kitchen had 24 feet of countertop with 11 countertop receptacles. Each was a circuit. There were a total of 14 120 volt circuits in the kitchen. There was no inspection in place yet so I only installed a gfci on each side of the sink though. I think while I was single I used two of the circuits, getting married increased it to four.
 
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65ranchero

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Unless they're all on their own circuit it's overkill. If on the same circuit only the first one needs a GFCI and the one's downstream are protected, and in a new GFCI's packaging/box you'll find stickers to label regular outlets downstream as "GFCI Protected"
I do realize that and do not have a clue if it's on separate circuits.
I am aware of GFCIs only need to be on the 1st receptacle and labels.
Thanks for all the replies, all of them are very valid.
 

MeentSS02

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We had a customer once that did something like that.

Every box had its own gfci and was only protecting a receptacle in the same box if any.

Reason for him was he did not want to trip any other receptacle besides the one he was using.

That's what I did in my garage...sounded like a good idea at the time, mainly because I didn't want to have to walk across the garage to reset a tripped outlet.

In reality, I don't think I've ever tripped an outlet, so it's largely been a waste. But it was my money and my time, so I just consider it another lesson learned.
 

Being

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My wife and I were visiting her sister who has a house in PA.
Being the 1st visit to the house I was giving it the once over.
While in the kitchen I noticed every receptacle in the kitchen had its own GFCI including a dual receptacle.
Is there a specific reasoning for this or is it just over kill?
Just curious!
Overkill or shitforbrains
 

Stuart in MN

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GFCI receptacles can be bought for $15 to $20 each, so there's maybe an additional $100 or so in cost over regular duplex receptacles. While it wasn't necessary, in the whole scope of what a kitchen remodel costs it was a drop in the bucket.
 

larry4406

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My house was built in 1987. We bought it about 8 years ago. It did not have GFI receptacles in the kitchen. I was able to find the first outlet in each of the 2 appliance circuits and changed them to a GFI's protecting all down stream outlets.

I have had on my new construction houses, customers who have requested GFI's at all point of use locations so they don't have to go find the reset. They paid extra for this.
 

SlappyWhite

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On one side you save a little money by hanging the downstream ones off of the first one. If one did trip someone has to figure out which first one is the first one....this won't be an electrician but maybe someone completely inept. Maybe someone has to put down their beer, get off the couch and "troubleshoot".

On the other hand it costs more to have one at each location.... Maybe some OCD by the owner to have all kitchen outlets look the same. No doubt where the fault is. I cannot imagine that doing it this way violates code in any jurisdiction.
 

acer66

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The way I remember it was that the customer was concerned about others using receptacles downstream and not realizing why the power went out starting to fiddle around and he switches it back on not thinking about that.
 

Boatman62

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This made me laugh. The house we are in now was built by the previous owner in 2004. Every receptacle in the kitchen and bathroom was a GFCI. Duplexes, refrigerator, stove, microwave..... everything.
 
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65ranchero

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That reminds me of the time I had someone do my MB bath remodel and th contractor installed 2 GFCI's receptacles ( one by the sink ,and one down low for a towel dryer ) on the same circuit and the town inspector made him replace the down stream one with a normal receptacle. Told him it was not necessary.
 

nadogail

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We have a house that was occupied by three roommates, all females in their twenties, and each of the girls had their own bathroom. We were the third owner of the house.

The house was built with all three bathroom receptacles protected by a single GFCI, I was frequently called because when one of the girls hairdryers tripped the GFCI, nobody could get their hair ready for work. I solved the problem by reconnecting the GFCI receptacle, and adding two so that each bathroom was protected by it's own independent GFCI.
 

MeentSS02

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We have a house that was occupied by three roommates, all females in their twenties, and each of the girls had their own bathroom. We were the third owner of the house.

The house was built with all three bathroom receptacles protected by a single GFCI, I was frequently called because when one of the girls hairdryers tripped the GFCI, nobody could get their hair ready for work. I solved the problem by reconnecting the GFCI receptacle, and adding two so that each bathroom was protected by it's own independent GFCI.
Did the same in my parents' condo. All three bathrooms were protected by a single GFCI...in the garage. Took me a while to find it when I tripped them with my tester to see if they were even protected.
 
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dscheidt

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That's what I did in my garage...sounded like a good idea at the time, mainly because I didn't want to have to walk across the garage to reset a tripped outlet.

In reality, I don't think I've ever tripped an outlet, so it's largely been a waste. But it was my money and my time, so I just consider it another lesson learned.
Shop I used to work in had a single circuit serving five or six technician's workstations. Each station had a GFCI, so if one tech did something boneheaded, like drill a hole in the bottom of a jug of antifeeze, it didn't mess with the others. (I have no idea why he drilled a hole in the bottom a full jug of antifeeze. I wasn't around for it.) As noted, it's a pretty trivial expense in the scheme of a shop, so why not?
 

dcg9381

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I have had on my new construction houses, customers who have requested GFI's at all point of use locations so they don't have to go find the reset. They paid extra for this.
I also, suspect it was due to an over-zealous inspector that thought all the GFIs needed to be outlets with reset buttons.

Having built a new home and having had RVs where the GFI outlet was not-obvious, I would have paid good money to have them on the breaker instead...
 

slik560

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Our house was built in 1962 with no grounded outlets. All two-prong plug outlets. I've been replacing with GFCI's where required: baths, garage, basement, etc., but if there is no ground wire connecting them all on a given circuit [2-wire Romex throughout] are the downstream outlets still protected? I may have a LOT of these to replace. :)
 

ycgoat

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Running all down stream outlets through a single GFCI outlet is the minimum, individual GFCI outlets for all on the circuit is the maximum. I can not fault anyone for doing more than the bare minimum.

I have added GFCI on many occasions because the Master GFCI outlet was in the garage next to the panel and the ladies would trip it using hair dryers in an upstairs bathroom. It does not take many trips downstairs into a cold garage with wet hair before the lady of the house starts demanding individual GFCI outlets.
 

rlitman

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Running all down stream outlets through a single GFCI outlet is the minimum, individual GFCI outlets for all on the circuit is the maximum. I can not fault anyone for doing more than the bare minimum.

I have added GFCI on many occasions because the Master GFCI outlet was in the garage next to the panel and the ladies would trip it using hair dryers in an upstairs bathroom. It does not take many trips downstairs into a cold garage with wet hair before the lady of the house starts demanding individual GFCI outlets.
I don't know if there's a good answer to this. A GFCI has the ability to protect everything downstream of the LOAD terminals. That means that it protects both the devices plugged into the downstream receptacles, as well as all of the downstream wiring. By connecting everything to the LINE side, you lose that wiring protection. Not that it should need it, but it's nice to have. By connecting one GFCI downstream of the LOAD terminals of another, you're likely to trip both with ground fault current.
 

ycgoat

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Every outlet on the load side of a single GFCI will add to the total current through the outlet making over heating at the first outlet more likely, and if multiple devices have a current bleed of mA to ground it can trip the GFCI even though all devices are operating with in specs. I typically use a single GFCI in a string of outlets in the same room or area
 

rlitman

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Every outlet on the load side of a single GFCI will add to the total current through the outlet making over heating at the first outlet more likely, and if multiple devices have a current bleed of mA to ground it can trip the GFCI even though all devices are operating with in specs. I typically use a single GFCI in a string of outlets in the same room or area
This makes no sense. A GFCI operates off the principle of current imbalance between line and neutral. There should always be effectively zero current bleeding to ground, regardless of how much wiring exists downstream of it.
 

SlappyWhite

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Our house was built in 1962 with no grounded outlets. All two-prong plug outlets. I've been replacing with GFCI's where required: baths, garage, basement, etc., but if there is no ground wire connecting them all on a given circuit [2-wire Romex throughout] are the downstream outlets still protected? I may have a LOT of these to replace. :)

It should work but you have to figure out for sure what is downstream and upstream....

GFCI's are added to K&T to provide three prong outlets in a similar way but cannot be cascaded as the concept of downstream isn't entirely there....
 

Dagny

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Most things that are plugged in in the kitchen produce heat and draw 12 to 15 amps I have done this in many kitchens especially if the panel is close.

But I never bid on jobs so I dont have to do minimum code.
 

ycgoat

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This makes no sense. A GFCI operates off the principle of current imbalance between line and neutral. There should always be effectively zero current bleeding to ground, regardless of how much wiring exists downstream of it.
An electric current will produce a magnetic field that can induce a current, opposite the direction of the current that produced it. If This induced current is in the grounded housing of an appliance it will not return to ground on the neutral and can create a small imbalance.
Capacitors and coils are energy storage devices, so when they are first energized the source will see an inrush of current that does not immediately show up on the neutral, creating an initial and usually an intermittent imbalance. As long as these anomalies are small enough to stay below the GFCI trip level of ~3mA, no one notices, but the more devices you put on a single GFCI the larger any imbalance can become on the total circuit.

On any electrical appliance (except maybe a transformer) the closer you get the rated current and the longer it sees the heavy load the sooner it will fail as compared to other wiring methods that reduce the total load on the same type of device (in this case a GFCI outlet).
 

rlitman

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An electric current will produce a magnetic field that can induce a current, opposite the direction of the current that produced it. If This induced current is in the grounded housing of an appliance it will not return to ground on the neutral and can create a small imbalance.
Capacitors and coils are energy storage devices, so when they are first energized the source will see an inrush of current that does not immediately show up on the neutral, creating an initial and usually an intermittent imbalance. As long as these anomalies are small enough to stay below the GFCI trip level of ~3mA, no one notices, but the more devices you put on a single GFCI the larger any imbalance can become on the total circuit.

The inductive coupling to ground in devices should not add up to a milliamp. Probably not even microamps. And this is not an inrush issue either (though transients are known to trip GFCIs). Anyway, transients are not ever additive. Nor is this a power factor issue.

My garage has a 20A circuit dedicated to "tools" with a single GFCI outlet near the panel. From the load side, it leads out over probably 100' (cumulative) of Romex to 11 duplex receptacles in every direction. Most of these have power strips plugged into them permanently, each of which has tools plugged in permanently (chop saw, drill press, scroll saw, band saw, TIG welder water cooler, generator battery maintainers (2), Monitor kerosene heater, TV, at least 6 table lamps, multiple cordless tool battery chargers (Bosch and Milwaukee), two soldering stations and associated smoke evacuators, lights and vacuum for my sandblaster, a cordless phone charging base, and that's got to be less than half the list). Also plugged in permanently are a 50' extension cord reel, a 30' extension cord reel, three drop lights on 20' cord reels, plus a 20' cord reel with the ratchet pawl removed that provides power to a fan and light mounted to the inside of my garage door (I use them when the door is up, and the cord extends as the door goes down). Many of these devices are plugged into IoT relays as well (these have their own internal switching power supplies).

It is hard for me to imagine any scenario more likely to meet your additive threshold, yet with all this ****, I have NEVER had a nuisance GFCI trip (I do test my GFCIs at least annually, and this particular GFCI was installed in 2005). I have tripped it several times due to real ground faults (likely saving me from Electroboom style results at least once), and I regularly trip the circuit breaker with my 12" chop saw (it's rated 18A, but the inrush is severe). I'll also point out that more modern GFCI chipsets have lower nuisance trip rates than my older unit.

OTOH, theater lighting techs will be aware of how GFCIs most certainly can nuisance trip. But in their case, we're talking about a circuit loaded to capacity with power supplies and lighting loads. Outlets and house wiring do not constitute the kind of loads that may add up to trip a GFCI (and if they do, you have a bigger issue).

...On any electrical appliance (except maybe a transformer) the closer you get the rated current and the longer it sees the heavy load the sooner it will fail as compared to other wiring methods that reduce the total load on the same type of device (in this case a GFCI outlet).
Circuit breakers have a "thermal" cutout. A GFCI does not. The time trip curve specified in UL 943 only reaches out to just under 6 seconds:
 

ycgoat

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The scenario I described before where they wired the garage, outside outlets and bathrooms all on a single GFCI outlet in the garage, causes the GFCI to trip; often enough I have gone through several houses and changed the configuration so that each room is protected by a GFCI located in that room. An entire neighborhood near me is wired this way.
 

egdede

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Overkill or shitforbrains
Or, during, a remodel the cost off adding a GFCI to a new outlet box was far cheaper than daisy-chaining that new outlet into into existing wiring. That is one reason I have more GFCI protection in my Kitchen than is 'necessary'. So, now the **** is seen to be in your brain (mister : )
 

starquestMM

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If there is lighting on the same circuit then maybe it was done to avoid having the downstream lights go out when the gfci outlet trips.
 

Terry D

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Going back to the original question, In 1987, All the counter receptacles were not required to be GFCI protected, just the ones with in 6 ft of the sink. But now they all need to be GFCI protected, not sure what code that came out, but its been a while. So if the home was sold and there was a inspection report saying all counter receptacles need to be GFCI protected, So people think that means to put a GFCI receptacle at each location. Or there could of been a kitchen remodel where there are now j-boxes below in the basement from reworking the circuits and maybe both line and load wires are not in the box(s) at the counter. Maybe the homeowner at the sale of the home could not figure it out and was just easier putting an $18.00 GFCI at each location verses hiring a electrician at $ 90.00 per hr plus the cost of the GFCi's. My point is that the reason cant be diagnosed over the internet, there is to many possibility's
 
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Terry D

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The scenario I described before where they wired the garage, outside outlets and bathrooms all on a single GFCI outlet in the garage, causes the GFCI to trip; often enough I have gone through several houses and changed the configuration so that each room is protected by a GFCI located in that room. An entire neighborhood near me is wired this way.
I have seen this to many times, Had a service call one time where they lost power to the bathroom receptacles. They didn't even realize the outside receptacles were also dead. Found a tripped GCFI in the basement behind a bunch of boxes. Homeowner did not even realize it was there. I understand this is cheaper than putting GFCI;s at each location, but that never did make sense to me just using one GFCI. Plus this was a million dollar home.
 

Leaflessshadetree

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Nice to have the GFCI where it is easy to find and reset it no matter what trips it. Installing additional GFCIs on the load side "downstream" of another does not provide more protection also no guarentee as to which trips first.
 

Innovate1

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An electric current will produce a magnetic field that can induce a current, opposite the direction of the current that produced it. If This induced current is in the grounded housing of an appliance it will not return to ground on the neutral and can create a small imbalance.
Capacitors and coils are energy storage devices, so when they are first energized the source will see an inrush of current that does not immediately show up on the neutral, creating an initial and usually an intermittent imbalance.
The primary cause of imbalance between line and neutral (that aren't actual faults) is usually capacitive not magnetic. EMI filters have small line to ground capacitors which is one cause. Most inrush happens on the line and neutral at the same time. A coil doesn't delay current going in one end from when it comes out the other end of it which seems to be what you are saying.
 

nicks78camaro

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I have 4 outlets in my kitchen and they're all on separate circuits, because it's a 1950s house and the wiring goes to and from random places, some wiring is newer than others. So all outlets are GFCI in the kitchen.
 

ycgoat

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Another set of photo eyes at the top of the track would probably be the easiest to implement. Most commercial openers can have two sets wired up. Not sure about residential openers

The primary cause of imbalance between line and neutral (that aren't actual faults) is usually capacitive not magnetic. EMI filters have small line to ground capacitors which is one cause. Most inrush happens on the line and neutral at the same time. A coil doesn't delay current going in one end from when it comes out the other end of it which seems to be what you are saying.
Thanks makes sence, would that hold true for a coil resisting the sudden change in current due to the magnetic field?
 
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