Joshua Peterson with Peterson Electric. I wanted to talk to you about a GFCI receptacle. A lot of people say GFI, which is fine. It is slang term. The proper terminology is ground fault circuit interrupter. Basically, this is fairly a generic one. It doesn’t have a TR stamp on it for the new tamper proof with the plastic tab to keep your kids from lighting themselves up. This is an older style GFCI. It has a red & black push button. It is really a generic style. Personally, I like Levity or Pass & Seymour. This definitely has Home Depot written on it, which is fine, but I prefer to have a real high quality on a GFCI because I don’t have to go back and warranty them. They never give me warranty money. Bottom line is when we put in one of these, the purpose of this is a lot like your hair dryer. If you look at the end of your hair dryer on your plug, you have what they call is basically a GFCI. If you drop the hair dryer in the sink, you will not get electrocuted because it will cut out. A lot of people think their breakers are protecting them from electrocution, NOT TRUE! Breakers are there to protect your wire and house from over ampacity draws, dead shorts in short circuits or ground faults, but what a GFCI protects you from is being electrocuted. They are all required in all the areas of the house, basically where you do not have a finished area, such as carpet, hardwood or tile, so outside garage, basements, crawl spaces, unfinished areas is where you are going to see GFCI. When someone goes and plugs something in, if their cord is shorting out or an appliance motor like a drill is not working properly, what is going to end up happening is that GFCI reset button is going to cut out on you. On the back of one of these GFCIs, you are going to see line and load. This is for you brave souls out there, who want to mess with house. Line means the power coming in and load means the power coming out, down stream. When you do this, you cannot mix up your neutrals. You want to make sure your “hot” and your downside is lining up with the line and load. Fairly easy to wire, but if you have a bunch of wires in there, you may not want to mess with it. When you start seeing three or four blacks in there and three or four white commons in there, that is because of the fact that you have to know where you are feeding your load side and what is your line. You can just pigtail all of them out and put in just one receptacle and it will kill just that opening or you can actually download and kill a bunch of other outlets, so that way you are not putting in $20.00 devices in each opening. You are putting in a normal outlet. Bottom line, GFCI are really important in kitchens and bathrooms especially if you are renting your house or you have a property management taking care of it or if you have a lot of children in there. It is real common for someone to have a stereo sink, right there in their bathroom and bump into the water and then go in there to grab it. That is when you are going to get “locked up” really hard. GFCIs want to tell you about them. They are a good thing to get. Leviton or Pass & Seymour is what I like. I don’t spare a little cheap expense on that. I definitely buy the best of the best and put them in. Make sure it is put in right and your connection are tight. If you need help with that, we can do something as simple as that. Our number is 720.641.8866. Thanks!
