I have a brand new house and in my unfinished basement I have constructed a little workout area. I have a treadmill plugged into the only really available outlet, which is a GFCI outlet. I have tripped this thing a bunch of times via my treadmill. I have had the electrician replace the outlet twice now. Each time, however, he got the outlet working again by switching the breaker (the last times it didn’t look obvious to be it was tripped). This time, however, I switched it back and forth. I still can’t get my 3 pronged treadmill plug to plug into the outlet. I have a two pronged television down there and it plugs in with a little difficulty (it’s a safety outlet where two prongs have to touch at the same time). Why can’t I get my 3 prong to plug in? The ground prong and the bottom prong seem to go in, but the top one doesn’t. The test and reset button work. I looked elsewhere on line and there were some posts stating not to plug a treadmill into a GFCI outlet. Why not? The electrician as well as one of my neighbor electricians never said anything about treadmills not playing nice with GFCI. Do I have to replace it again?
You sure its a GFCI and not an AFCI (arc fault)? There has been a lot of history with treadmills and AFCIs not playing together nicely.
This is what NordicTrack has to say about treadmills and GFCI:
My guess is that the belt is what generates a lot of static electricity which gets routed to the ground wire so you don’t get shocked. This freaks out a GFCI outlet. Not many consumer items are likely to have such a big flat surface rubbing constantly like a treadmill does, so this problem is unique to this kind of device.
Treadmills are known to trigger GFCI outlets frequently – the makers design them to safely disperse current via the ground.
Since you’ve had an electrician out, just have him install another, non-GFCI outlet for your treadmill. (If that’s the only “really available” outlet , he probably should install a few others at the same time.)
I don’t know what your basement looks like, but why is that outlet a GFCI in the first place? I’m pretty sure they’re not required just because it’s a basement, unless there are water pipes running above it or something. You should be able to install a standard outlet there; if the breaker is GFCI, you should be able to switch that outlet circuit to another non-GFCI breaker (or replace the breaker with a standard unit), barring any other issues on the same circuit.
Many jurisdictions require GFCIs in basements now, due to the possibility of flooding. A regular outlet may not be allowed.
ETA: sometimes you can get around that by installing a single-outlet receptacle where there is no chance of someone plugging anything else in there. That’s what was typically done for fridge circuits, but you may not be able to get away with it for a treadmill.
Yes, we were told GFCI is supposed to be in the basement. I have two other outlets, one is for the sump pump and the other is for the fan on the furnace. The GFCI outlet is in the open area where my home gym is, under the fuse box.
Why is it that I can plug in a 2 prong but not a 3 prong plug?
(I plan on finishing the basement after I buy new furniture and a new tv, but not for a while.)
What if you put in an outlet for the treadmill in the basement, high up on the wall, or even on the ceiling? Would that still need to be a GFCI outlet?
If you can be in contact with concrete while plugging something in to it it has to be a GFCI.
They removed the exception for dedicated circuits a while back so even a new plug for a 120v sump pump has to be a GFCI by code.
It may be a “virgin outlet”, use a bit of force. Or try a different 3 prong plug first.
Also the outlet could be defective and no 3 prong plug will work.