sadears

I have two outlets in a bathroom, one in another and outside outlets that don't work. At first they were tripping the breaker. Now they do nothing...not even tripping the breaker. There are two GFCI outlets downstairs. Those weren't tripped either. I thought it was the breaker, so I replaced that. Nothing. After reading around here for a bit, I am wondering if the GFCI outlets need to be replaced.

Any ideas?

Stephanie

JTGP

Change out the GFCI's.

How many outlets are on the one breaker that tripped?

sadears

Not sure. Four that aren't working so far that I can tell though I haven't checked all the outlets in the house.

Are there different shapes and sizes of GFCI's like breakers? Do I need to take an old one to compare?

isola96

Are the GFI downstairs on the same breaker?....

sadears

Don't know. Probably. In the same bathroom, right next to each other.

isola96

You need to find out exactly what's on the breaker 1st,..... there should probable be more then just the 2 GFI's... Check your connections to the GFI(s), lights, recepticals, switches it there on same breaker,

sadears

I spoke to the electrical pro at work (I work at Lowe's). He thought I needed to replace one of the GFI outlets in the bathroom. I opened them up. The photo on the makes me think it should be the GFI. The one on the right looks like it should be a regular outlet. What do you think? They are currently both GFI.

joecaption

There's no way to tell unless someone was there to check it. I've never seen two GFI's sitting next to each other like that.
One GFI can protect (if it's placed first in line in a circut) the whole circut. There's 0 reason if the power comes into one gfi to feed it to another one down line.
Why is that black wire not connected?

sadears

Don't know why the black wire was not connected. Wonder if it slipped out. Considering the stuff I've discovered in the last 8 year anything is possible.

I have a little tester that you put into the outlet. It's for a GFI outlet. Supposed to tell if the outlet is wired correctly. When I insert it and puthe little button, it trips the other GFI outlet.

The guy at Lowe's said I should replace one of the GFI's with a regular outlet. I replaced the GFI on the right with a GFI, thinking it was bad one...because tester made the other one trip it. So I was going to replace the GFI on the left with the regular one.

However...after looking at them now I wonder if the one on the right should be replaced with a regular. Looks like the outlet on the left has other stuff running into it and should be the GFI. The one on the right leads me to believe it runs into the GFI on the left.

May replace GFI on left with the one I had bought for the right outlet. Then replace the right with a regular outlet. And insert the little lost black wire where it probably belongs.

joecaption

That black wire was suppost to be attached under the metal clip that gets tightened down with the screw.
Without it attached or it was even loose it will trip the GFI.
http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infelectrical/infgfi.html