If it trips when the Test button is depressed, then it should be ok. The Test button places a current differential across the sensor circuitry of >5 mA, simulating a real-world ground fault. I’m not aware of any cases in which the Test button would trip the device, but an actual ground fault condition would not, but I suppose it’s not absolutely 100% out of the question.
There are a number of variables. GFCI receptacles are permitted to protect up to 6 downstream receptacles. This is predicated on proper installation/wiring of the first one. Plugging an appliance into the top is fine, but plugging the same appliance into the bottom causes an immediate trip which will reset? Personally, I’d discontinue use of the receptacle until it has been professionally evaluated.
Hmm. I’ve tried the Test button and it does trip the GFI. That’s the only GFI in the apartment, and I’d be surprised if it controls any other outlets… my complex was built in the early 80s, and the wiring doesn’t seem to be very modern in any other respect (woefully few electrical outlets and only one cable jack).
Don’t rely on the test button! I just had a GFCI rewired by an electrician because it was wired in such a way that the test button tripped it but a REAL short to ground would not. I discovered this with one of those circuit testers that you can get for 7 dollars at the hardware store. The new testers have a GFCI test button on it.
Incidentally one of the downstream outlets would trip this GFCI when tested w/ the circuit tester.
My electrician rewired it and it works like it should now.
I did this very same thing back in 2011 when Tropical Depression Lee hit York County PA.
I had 30" of water in the basement contacting the freezer, furnace, dehumidifier (guess it wasn’t up to the task) and some other ancillary electrical items floating around.
Walked right down into the water in my bare feet without so much as a thought. I was trying to at least prevent anymore damage from occurring.
After the water had been pumped out. I had to replace the furnace blower motor and control board, the freezer still works but of course will eventually give way to corrosion and the dehumidifier is no longer with me.
The blower didn’t run that I am aware of although it was rather warm and humid during the storm. The A/C might have kicked on the blower but not while I was in the water and I turned it off while I was down there at the emergency switch. The light from the freezer at the bottom was lit underwater which surprised me that it hadn’t shorted out and of course the dehumidifier was literally floating in the water. It was the little orange light from the freezer that turned on my brain and said what the heck? Why haven’t I been fried?
No GFCI’s in my basement and not one single breaker tripped. It was like the theatre of the absurd. It just didn’t make sense unless the water was able to dissipate the charge which was one explanation I could think of or the other which was the circuit completing from the hot side to the water to the floor electrified the water and maybe it did. I’ve never really been satisfied with either answer.
But my reason for responding was the appliance in the bathtub.
If you threw an appliance into the tub with person it shouldn’t be any different than the basement as the circuit would only have a place to go if you still had an iron waste stack or you had copper water pipes (which we know are used as a ground) touching or connecting into the tub of water which wouldn’t be likely unless the water was running in. Either way your body is not connecting to the ground so why would you get electrocuted? You should just become “electrified” without becoming electrocuted. Kind of like being in a plane hit by lightning where the lightning just goes around the body of the plane and down to ground.
Well, the worst certainly does happen to some people. Just this weekend two people were found locally in critical condition in a flooded basement, in what looks like an electricity incident.
As I read the OP “* He goes over to the powerstrip, which is submerged and has four appliances connected to it, and whose red power light is still on, and unplugs it from the wall.”* They may well have been no real danger. If the water had shorted the system the breaker would have tripped, but it hadn’t. At no time did he make contact with a live wire - he just pulled the plug - so there was never a possibility of a shock. Was the wall plug above the waterline?
Sitting in the bath and reaching out to unplug an appliance has the potential for a serious shock, but I bet thousands (foolishly) do it every day.
So - while he would have been better advised to not do what he did, the fact that he got away with it, demonstrates that he wasn’t taking THAT much of a risk.
Water really isn’t a very good conductor, especially fresh (not salt) water. Good enough to kill you, but not good enough to trip a non GFCI breaker.
If I take the two conductors of a live wire, spaced about an inch apart, and plunge them into a pail of ordinary tap water, will that not trip the circuit breaker? If it does, how far apart do they have to be to not trip it?
Would anyone like to try?
It ain’t fun when water from a salt water aquarium spills on a power strip.
I have two hypotheses for the toaster in the tub scenario:
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the person in the tub touches the toaster, or touches a metal fixture in the tub.
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the distance the body covers in the water in the tub is much greater than the distance between left & right feet when walking in the basement, so there can be a greater potential difference. Also, the path is through the chest.
Usually, when electrocuted in the US, it’s not tissue damage due to the voltage or current, but rather disruption of the solar plexus due to alternating current in the chest. It doesn’t take much current, as mentioned above. But it’s not nearly so dangerous if limited to one limb, or jus legs.
25 mA we were told in engineering school.
If I get some time, I’ll try it tonight. Off the top of my head I’m thinking that the wires will have to be fairly close to get enough current to trip the breaker. An inch is probably too far apart.
Most safety standards in the U.S. are built around 5 mA as being the maximum “safe” current. Admittedly, 5 mA isn’t all that likely to throw your heart into fibrillation. 25 mA is much more likely to do that.
The current also has to go across your heart. Then again, if you are standing in water with an electrical wire in it, and one foot is at one voltage potential and the other foot as at a different voltage potential, then part of the current will go through the water and part of the current will go through your body, including going up your leg, through your chest and back down through your other leg.
Death due to fibrillation is also kinda hit and miss. Sometimes your heart’s rhythm will go all wonky due to the shock, sometimes it won’t.
I think that in this case the water was highly polluted with various household substances, and it conducted really well. Hence the voltage of most of the water was zero, the voltage occured between the water pipes and the metal body of the appliances, but the rest of the water was strongly grounded.
With rain water sitting on the bare earth, it is very pure water, nearly non-conductive and the person is providing the salt that makes it conductive near the persons body. So when they get near the power line, they become a better path to earth than the water.
Hmm. Let us know how your experiment goes. Be sure that someone knows to contact us in case there are any difficulties.
It has nothing to do with “better.”
The current takes all paths.
The only question is whether the path though your chest is on the iso-current line that is enough to cause problems. Most of the time, it won’t be.
I’ll quibble with the statement “…demonstrates that he wasn’t taking THAT much of a risk.”
Folks do stupid-dangerous stunts, both planned and unplanned, every day. Some die, some live. The fact a particular person happened to survive tells us nothing about whether his odds were 99% to die, or 1% to die. All we can say for sure is the odds for his particular circumstances weren’t 100% to die. They *could *have been 99.9% to die & he was just the 1 in 1000 lucky guy.
And 11 years of this scenario simmering hasn’t changed the odds much.
So, what are the odds that a zombie about not dying unexpectedly arises from the dead? A statistical mystery indeed.
Ok, here are the results.
I came into the laundry room with a bucket, an old extension cord with the end cut off that I happened to have lying around, and a set of diagonal cutters, which prompted my eldest son to immediately exclaim “oh god, you’re not doing another science experiment, are you?” I think I’m getting a reputation around my house. Anyway, I stripped back about 2 inches of insulation off of the wire, so I had roughly 2 inches of bare stranded wire placed into the bucket. I started with the wires about an inch apart.
As expected, the breaker did not blow.
I moved the wires as close together as I could with this crude setup (maybe an eighth of an inch apart at the most) and repeated the experiment, and again it did not blow the breaker.
About what I expected, although I was kinda hoping to be able to get the wires close enough to trip the breaker.
Water does conduct electricity a lot better than something like wood, but it’s nowhere near as good of a conductor as something like copper.
Water doesn’t conduct electricity as well as everyone assumes.
My high school chemistry teacher had a demonstration. Two electrodes in distilled water. He turned the DC power on (I do not remember the voltage) no measureable current flow. He put a little salt in the water and he started to get bubbles at each electrode and there was small current flow. Put more salt in the water more bubbles and current flow.
I had an experience when I worked at a hotel in San Mateo Ca. One night some of the parking lot lights were not on. The breakers were on but 1/3 of the lights were off with no current at the circuit breakers. I started to trace the wires and conduit out. 1st Christi box in the ground had power on 3 circuits and current on 2 phases. Kept going down the line checking boxes. I opened one and it was full of water. All the wires were under water. And it was a splice box, that means that each phase came into the box and was wire nutted to the wire going out of the box. This was 408 VAC parking lot lighting system. There was no way I was going to stick my hands in that Christi box. I checked the next box down line and each phase had power. The wires were in water with no electrical tape or splicing tape around the wire nuts. That is 277 VAC to ground and 408 VAC leg to leg and nothing was happening.
It took time but I finally found the Christy box with a bad splice and got all the lights working.
Not really. You can shut off all the power to the house by pulling the electric meter.
Your electric meter controls all the power to the house, and it is probably located outside the house, a few feet up from the ground.
There is a dogtag-like metal item with a number, held on with small wire (non-electrical). Often that can be broken just by pulling at it, or you may need to use a pliers or screwdriver to break it. Then just pull the meter out, and all power is off to the house. Sometime after you (or your electrician) replaces the meter, you will need to have the power company come out and seal the meter with a new tag.