GFI's in series?

[Just_George]

Working on a kitchen for a customer the other day - he had installed 3 GFI recepticles in series, evidently not realizing that the first would protect everything downstream. Intuitively, this seems to me like it could/would cause problems, but I don't know if that's really true. Seems to be working, but I'd like to know if there are potential problems, or reasons it shouldn't be done. Anybody able to shed some light on this?

TIA

 

[Speedy Petey]

Are you sure they were wired LINE-LOAD-LINE-LOAD-etc?

Maybe they were all wired to LINE side.

Even so, it is not a problem, it's just something done by someone who probably had no clue and shouldn't be doing electrical work in the first place. It's more of a nuisance thing that anything.

 

[Highbeam]

They can be wired in series or in parallel. To find out, poke the "test" button on the first one and if the other two shut off then you have verified that they are in series. Superior installation would have them in parallel where each one can be shut off with the test button but all others remain powered up.

You can fix this in the box to make each independent or in parallel.

 

[VHF]

It isn't the best practice to have one GFCI recepticle protected by another, but it will work OK and the GFCI protection won't be compromised. Similar to plugging a hair dryer or pressure washer with its own GFCI protector into a GFCI protected outlet. In case of a ground fault, whichever GFCI is faster or more sensitive will trip first.

 

[6768rogues]

I would hook the downstream GFCI receptacles to the line side of the upstream GFCI receptacles, so they only protect themselves and one tripping will not trip out the others.