Electrical help??!!?!?!

[Mr. Habib]

As someone suggested up thread, disconnect the load side wires from the GFCI and see if it still trips. If not, check all of your outlets to see which ones lost power when you disconnected that wiring including ones outdoors. Electricians will often run wires in ways that don't always make sense once the drywall is up. I have personally seen porch outlets on the front of a house not 3 feet from an outlet on an interior wall connected to a GFCI on the deck at the rear of the house to save the cost of a second GFCI in front. You may be just missing an outlet or load that isn't obvious.

 

[Mgderf]

As someone suggested up thread, disconnect the load side wires from the GFCI and see if it still trips. If not, check all of your outlets to see which ones lost power when you disconnected that wiring including ones outdoors. Electricians will often run wires in ways that don't always make sense once the drywall is up. I have personally seen porch outlets on the front of a house not 3 feet from an outlet on an interior wall connected to a GFCI on the deck at the rear of the house to save the cost of a second GFCI in front. You may be just missing an outlet or load that isn't obvious.

^This
I was working for a company years ago that was remodeling an apartment building.
I watched Duke energy pull the meter from the building we were working on, basically shutting off all electrical service to the building.

I was given a flashlight and a pair of side cut pliers and told to go to the basement and strip every wire I could find from the building.
About 1/2 hour into my task I cut a live wire. Thank goodness it was only 110v.

After checking further we found, at some time in the past, someone had run a leg to the neighboring property.
They were stealing electricity from the neighbor.

You never know what you will find in an old building.
Be careful, and ALWAYS use insulated tools, as well as wear insulated shoes/boots.

 

[JettaKnight]

I think you need to get someone there that knows electrical work.
Electricity is DANGEROUS.

Meh. 277 is dangerous. 120 just tingles.

^This
I was working for a company years ago that was remodeling an apartment building.
I watched Duke energy pull the meter from the building we were working on, basically shutting off all electrical service to the building.

I was given a flashlight and a pair of side cut pliers and told to go to the basement and strip every wire I could find from the building.
About 1/2 hour into my task I cut a live wire. Thank goodness it was only 110v.

After checking further we found, at some time in the past, someone had run a leg to the neighboring property.
They were stealing electricity from the neighbor.

You never know what you will find in an old building.
Be careful, and ALWAYS use insulated tools, as well as wear insulated shoes/boots.

If your side cutters don't have a notch in them from cutting a live wire, then you haven't been working long enough.


As to the issue at hand, it sounds like a connected device (could be the power strip) has gone wonky. Likely a protection MOV is now leaking current to ground.



You could check code and if a GFCI isn't required at that location, you could eliminate it. Off hand, I don't remember.

 

[Mr. Habib]

The notch is simply an i[STRIKE]mprovement[/STRIKE] field modification. They can now double as wire strippers.

 

[jkaetz]

@OP, just to be clear it is the GFCI tripping yes? Not the circuit breaker? Breakers trip because there is too much current on the circuit. My understanding is that GFCIs trip because the current coming into the outlet on the hot wire isn't going out the neutral side. The assumption is that if the current isn't going back out the neutral side then it's going to ground through something it shouldn't (most critically a human).

 

[gregkl]

The notch is simply an i[STRIKE]mprovement[/STRIKE] field modification. They can now double as wire strippers.

I have a notched screwdriver from working in a panel box.

 

[DocIndy]

I had a similar issue. Found out it was a loose neutral in the panel thanks to the genius residential guys. I went through the whole panel and found several loose wires on both the neutral bar and the breakers.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I have a notched screwdriver from working in a panel box.

I have improved a wall with hot copper splatter by trying to reconnect an outlet hot and bumped the other screw with my needle nose.

 

[JettaKnight]

I had a similar issue. Found out it was a loose neutral in the panel thanks to the genius residential guys. I went through the whole panel and found several loose wires on both the neutral bar and the breakers.

Yeah, it's not a bad idea to check every lug when you have the cover off. I did some basement work and found a few loose lugs my current house.


I've bumped a few wires when working in a panel and saw some small sparks - loose neutral on circuit(s).

 

[Cameramonkey]

Yes, loose lugs does a number on sensitive electronics. Mom's 90% gas furnace had totally unexplainable errors being thrown by the circuit. Tightened the lugs and no problems since.

 

[halfmileharry]

Yeah, it's not a bad idea to check every lug when you have the cover off. I did some basement work and found a few loose lugs my current house.


I've bumped a few wires when working in a panel and saw some small sparks - loose neutral on circuit(s).

Ditto on this to tighten things up.
I wasn't going to recommend anything as I think you're going to need a qualified tradesman to run this problem down properly.
Not putting down your skills or man card in any way but you have priorities in your life I'm sure you want to keep safe.
The "trip" is for safety. Keep that thinking

 

[gregkl]

I have improved a wall with hot copper splatter by trying to reconnect an outlet hot and bumped the other screw with my needle nose.

I have been known to work on hot connections. Switches are pretty easy since you more or less isolate one wire from the other. But outlets, I don't like to mess around with hot. Too many terminals and both the black in white in close proximity.

If I'm going to get shot of 110, it's usually with an outlet.

 

[cornbelt]

I'm not quite sure about your elec panel, whether there is a GFCI there, but they aren't designed to work more than one on a circuit, so if that's the problem, just leave the one out of the outlet.

 

[2A_Tom]

If you are buying the GFCI's at Menard's, just don't.

I have bought them there and had them bad out of the box. Go to an electrical supply.

 

[Fullmag]

The outlets on load side from GFI are they close to a water source? How many outlets after GFI? When working in that field we only had one outlet on load side. 15 or 20 amp outlet? It must be equal or less than breaker. Did you put electric tape around outlets before reinstalling? Had the problem before. GFI trip with a very small amount of amperage going to ground not like a 15 amp breaker load going over 15 amps.

 

[Cozy439]

SOLVED. So thankful for all your input. The second electrician (well seasoned/experienced) finally solved it. Between 2-3 of the suggestions above, you sorta covered it. RECAP: The initial GFCI went bad. The proper replacement kept tripping. With a regular (non-GFCI) outlet in place nothing tripped. He did a much more thorough search for any other outlets on the same circuit and found one I assumed was way too far away to be included. He ran all circuits with a tester - All passed. He installed a new GFCI. All worked. After questioning, he got me to remember the remote outlet normally has phone chargers on it. There was a few week time frame where I ran the regular outlet and had the circuit operational w/o GFCI protection. During this time one of the phone chargers died and had to be replaced. It had ruined a battery on the phone. When he came to run tests this last week, a new phone charger was being used. He said phone chargers with faults cause this. They ruined the battery and there was enough to trip the GFCI but not the regular breaker in the panel. With the new charger there was no longer an issue. By the way, I did wrap the outlet w/ tape, I do NOT buy supplies from Menards (anymore), the electrician said the exact thing; and 110 does tingle a little but my side cuts are not notched. Again, Thanks for all your help, some of you were on it or were pointing me the right way. I just assumed a lil bit too much.