When I push the retest button it catches and pops right back out. If I hold it in, what is connected to it will work. When I remove all plugs it still acts this same way. Since this is an outdoor outlet, I think it is on the circuit by itself.
this is a lifesaving device which in non-reparable. it’s broken, replace it.
Just for added fun,I just noticed that the circuit breaker for this outlet is not marked in the box. I have no idea which it feeds from. Can I just touch white and black together to short out the circuit?
Is this a GFI outlet or is it a GFI breaker that controls multiple outlets? If it’s just a single GFI outlet and nothing else is connected to it, then, as johnpost said, it’s toast. Replace it. If the GFI is protecting an entire circuit and not just one outlet, you could have a real ground fault somewhere in the circuit. Disconnect the hot and neutral to the downstream circuit. If the GFI still trips, then it’s toast.
Shorting hot and neutral together isn’t exactly the recommended way to find which breaker controls a circuit. It’s better to switch the breakers off one at a time until you find the right one.
No. No no no no no. The reason not to do this is you can potentially start a fire or electrocute yourself by touching wires together. You can potentially start a fire because creating a short will momentarily create a tremendous surge of current that can even weld wires together. The breakers is supposed to protect you from this, but it is a bad, bad idea to rely on it. You can electrocute yourself because in order to get the wires loose so you can touch them together, you might accidentally touch the screwdriver or the bare wire ends. Even a single shock can potentially fatally stop your heart (although this is unlikely if there isn’t a circuit across your heart and/or it is at 120 V AC)
Here’s what you do : turn off the main breaker (at the top of the box) if you have one.
If you don’t, turn off the breakers one by one until you get to the one supplying the GFI. Given that it won’t hold a load, you may not be able to determine this - if this is the case, just turn off all of your breakers and leave them off.
Unscrew the wall plate. Tools exist that will let you determine if a wire is hot, although if all of the breakers are off then it shouldn’t be a problem. Unscrew the outlet, unscrew the wires from each terminal, and take the outlet to the hardware store.
Make sure to purchase a GFI outlet from a reputable brand of the exact same amperage rating. It might be helpful to compare the one you removed to the replacement to make sure it will fit, because GFI outlets have an additional button that has to be exposed by the wall plate.
It is kind of scary, but the electricians where I used to work carried a piece of #12 wire bent into a U shape and used it to pop the breaker when they needed to replace a receptacle.
I’ve never done it myself, except by accident.
Familiarity breeds contempt. That is an insane way to operate, especially in any sort of industrial or commercial setting. If you work on a circuit you not only drop the breaker, you mark it clearly so that no-one else tries to reset it again. You only need another breaker in the box to drop because someone was trying to brew some coffee, and have them wander over to the box and reset the first breaker they see, to make your wife into a widow.
The instantaneous current when a line is shorted out can be immense. This is the fault current. Breakers are rated to a maximum fault current, and current that exceeds this has a habit of welding their contacts shut. Which is rather bad. The fault current that can be drawn is a function of the upstream feed. The closer to the transformer you are, the bigger the transformer, or a number of other issues, can greatly change the fault current. (This is why breakers in large buildings are usually much beefier than domestic ones. Even when they are rated to drop at the same current.) Again, in an industrial or commercial setting, the fault current can be huge, and you only need a simple miscalculation - or change in the configuration - to yield a situation where the fault current could be much bigger than expected. It is a very bad idea to use a safety device to perform tasks it isn’t intended to do.
If I had someone working for me carrying the u shaped wire, he would go walking
This was at an aerospace company who’s name might rhyme with “owing” and they were union guys.
I’m not saying it was common or approved practice, but I’d seen it done twice over the years.
I have seen guys use thier rubber handled dikes to just cut into the wires and short it out. I find that very unproffessional and dangerous.
I have cut live wires by mistake. Had to get a new set of dikes.
Point well taken. I will not try to short out the circuit. The reason I even thought of it is there is no reasonable way to isolate it given how it will not reset. I will just turn off electricity to the entire house. I have never replaced a gfi before. I know that there will be four wires. Is there anything tricky about it?
there are 4 wires if the GFI receptacle feeds something other, only 2 wires if it is the only one.
since you don’t know the individual breaker to turn off the electricity to that individual circuit then turn off the whole house main breaker. the reset button will no longer immediately pop out when the circuit is dead. a noncontact voltage tester (maybe about $20) is the safest and best device to check if a circuit is live or not.
if you see there are 4 wires you should disconnect the LOAD (outgoing) wires from the GFI receptacle to see if the problem lies there (this could be bad wire after, a bad receptacle after, something bad plugged in after). then you could screw the GFI receptacle back in the box and reset the breakers and see if the GFI reset button still pops out; if it still pops out then the GFI receptacle is broken and needs to be replaced, if it doesn’t pop out then that indicates the problem is further on and the problem needs to be corrected further on.
after you fix, then plug a radio in the GFI receptacle and find the individual circuit breaker that controls it and label the breaker.
Since the reset button won’t pop out if there’s no power, you could turn off breakers one at a time, until you find which one controls that circuit, which will let the button stay pushed. That could be a lot of up and down stairs, but if you have some idea which breaker it is, you may only need to try a few. In my house, we have one GFCI circuit for the bathrooms, basement, and outside outlets. Start with any circuits for an area that might get wet.
On the other hand, if you really have no idea which circuit, because none of the breakers are labeled, taking the time to go through and label your breakers could be worthwhile anyway.
Actually, most GFI circuitry only works when the circuit is energized. Killing the breaker will not allow the GFI to reset. You can test this yourself by going to your local big-box hardware store and trying it on the GFI outlets (or extension cords) on the shelf. You won’t be able to get the reset button to stick in.
Most of the breakers are labeled very carefully, thank goodness. We have about 60 breakers over 3 boxes so searching is very tedious.
Turning off the main is one way to make sure the power’s off to that GFI circuit. Otherwise, get a multimeter and check voltage after trying each breaker. If you do any electrical work at all a multimeter is a great tool to have.
There’s a much faster way to do this.
Turn off half the breakers (say all those on the right side of the box). If it’s now unpowered, it’s one of those breakers, otherwise it’s one of those on the left side. So now turn half of them back on. If it’s now powered, it’s one of those you just turned on, otherwise, it’s one of the ones that are still off. Keep doing this, each time turning on or off half of the remaining possible breakers until you find the one.
That’s much faster – you cut the possibilities in half every time. It should take you a maximum of 8 tries to find the right breaker.
I’m a union guy at that same company, I have never seen a u shaped wire in the 34 years I’ve been here. Every receptacle I have ever seen is marked with the supply box and breaker numbers. We use wiring diagrams for the airplanes.
You said if you hold the button in, devices that are plugged in start working again, right? If that’s the case it needs to be replaced. But often times I’ve found GFCI daisy chained to other GFCI outlets and they’ll pop each other, but that doesn’t sound like the case here.
Regarding the bent wire. I know someone who used to work at a huge factory doing repairs. One of his ‘tricks’ when he couldn’t figure out what was popping a fuse (were talking about after spending hours trying to track it down), was to stick a copper lug in the fuse panel and watch for the smoke. :eek:
As for finding the breaker, I’d start with anything in the panel labeled ‘outdoor’ or ‘garage’ or ‘exterior’ even if it just says lighting. Then move to bathroom or kitchen. Sometimes exterior outlets are wired in with bathrooms or kitchens. Then just start flipping breakers, you’ll hit it eventually. Start with things that are physically near the breaker.
Normally I’d say to plug a radio in so you can hear it turn off, but that’s not going to work here. Also, they make a thing you can plug into the outlet and the find the breaker with another tool, but, again, that’s not going to work in this case.