GFCI tripping & disconnecting service panel ground. This is wrong!

[Tim The Tool Man]

I'll try to make a long story short. In the 55 and older community where my in-laws live several residence are having GFCI tripping issues including my in-laws. A local electrician, who is actually licensed, (not sure about insured) is going around an charging an exorbitant fee to "fix" the problem by simply disconnect the mains ground to the structure. Now my in-laws want me to perform this service for them as well. (I own a home service business)

This electrician is telling people there are geological issues around the development and disconnecting the ground rods and water pipe grounds will solve the problem.

Have any of you guys heard of people doing this? What the hell!?

It is now winter here and we are getting sloppy wet snow and melting snow. Checking and testing all the exterior outlets and replacing the 15 year old GFCI outlets and/or breakers seems a lot more prudent to me. I don't want my insurance to have to replace a $450K structure that burned due to a lightning strike because I cut their ground.

 

[Fishingfoolemjak]

Lightning doesn’t exit thru the ground.... I don’t believe you should be disconnecting the grounds, although I’ll admit I’m not a geologist. Replacing the receptacles seems more prudent, and checking the panel for proper bonding would help.

Sometimes in remodel situations, gfci receptacles are installed when no ground is available, so I’m not sure why someone would be disconnecting the grounds to offset gfci issues anyways.

 

[checkthisout]

I'll try to make a long story short. In the 55 and older community where my in-laws live several residence are having GFCI tripping issues including my in-laws. A local electrician, who is actually licensed, (not sure about insured) is going around an charging an exorbitant fee to "fix" the problem by simply disconnect the mains ground to the structure. Now my in-laws want me to perform this service for them as well. (I own a home service business)

This electrician is telling people there are geological issues around the development and disconnecting the ground rods and water pipe grounds will solve the problem.

Have any of you guys heard of people doing this? What the hell!?

It is now winter here and we are getting sloppy wet snow and melting snow. Checking and testing all the exterior outlets and replacing the 15 year old GFCI outlets and/or breakers seems a lot more prudent to me. I don't want my insurance to have to replace a $450K structure that burned due to a lightning strike because I cut their ground.

How many residences has this "service" been performed on and when were the issues occuring?

Get some pictures of his handywork and post them on here.

 

[Stuff]

Any idea what GFCI issues people are experiencing?

Give the local building/inspection/code department a call as this violates code and endangers people.

Disconnecting ground rods at one residence means the neighbor's ground rods will be used. Is this nut removing the ground rods at the POCO's transformers as well?

 

[FarmerJack]

This problem can be caused by the amount of current flowing in the "Hot" (black) wire being different than the current flowing in the neutral (white) wire. While this can happen as the result of a hair dryer falling into the bath tub as the GFCI is designed to protect from, it can also happen when someone ties white wires from other circuits to the white wire attached to the GFCI outlet circuit. Home owners and rooky electricians sometimes do this and don't know any better. It is the imbalance of current of as little as 4-5 milliamps that trips the GFCI. The GFCI may only trip when some other circuit in the house is activated. I don't see how a GFCI tripping has anything to do with the ground rods attached to the panel. You can actually have a properly operating GFCI with out a ground wire.

 

[ard]

I'd be looking at the POCO's service and transformer serving these buildings. (Or have the poco do that)

Have you measured voltages? Each line to neutral and each line to ground? And ground to neutral? With and without loads.

 

[Tim The Tool Man]

Thanks for the replies. I'm heading over there later today. I'll get more information and hopefully a solution...

 

[mm08822]

Interesting approach…..disconnecting two of the leakage return paths that can provide the means to detect and isolate a root cause problem.
Nothing like fixing symptoms while enabling the problem to go further undetected and potentially get even more dangerous. He is eliminating most value of gfci protection.

You should just perform simple troubleshooting on the problem at your parent’s house and remedy the root cause. People on GJ can help you further if needed.
Determine what gfci device is tripping and the affected recepts downstream. Check inside and outside recepts.
Disconnect the load side of the gfci recept and verify it will reset. If no, then you have a bad gfci. If yes, then you have a problem downstream.
If exterior recepts are shut off, it could very easily be water leakage past an old gasket wetting the recept. Maybe a new recept, light bead of caulk and cover is the quick fix.

Don’t call that clown or follow his “fix”. Yes reporting him is necessary. Somebody will get hurt eventually.
I looked on the PA DLI website and found:
“MUNICIPAL CERTIFICATION AND LICENSURE:
Some of Pennsylvania’s 2,562 municipalities have established local licensure or certification requirements for contractors or construction trades people. Typically, these requirements pertain to home improvement contractors, electrical contractors (or electricians), and plumbing contractors (or plumbers). Since the Commonwealth has no jurisdiction in this matter, the Department maintains no records concerning municipalities that have established licensure or certification requirements. This information can only be obtained by contacting the municipality where construction work will occur.”

If you really want to help people report this guy.
Make sure you get all the facts of the problem reported by the customer to this “electrician”.
A copy of the bill
Pics of the “fix” he performed in the panel.
Then go to the town.