# GFCI problems - Please help



## pghelectrician (Jun 25, 2010)

Good morning everyone.

Here's an issue that I'm currently having...

I just completed a huge basement remodel. Three of the circuits that I installed are dedicated GFCI circuits (2 kitchen small appliance circuits, 1 bathroom countertop outets circuit). Each of the circuits have a Leviton tamper resistant slim GFCI outlet plus one standard tamper resistant outlet installed from the load sides of the GFCI outlets. The issue I'm having is that each of the GFCI outlets are randomly locking out. Not tripping out but locking out so you can't reset them. I can however reset them if I turn the breakers off and back on. But eventually the GFCI's lock out again. Thinking I had a bad batch of GFCI's, I've replaced them all but the same problem exists. I've triple checked all of my wiring and everything is solid. According to the manufacturer, when a GFCI locks out and doesn't trip it's because of loss of power or it fails it's internal test. Here's one strange detail...I originally thought there was a problem with the breakers feeding these circuits because when I jiggled one of them in the panel, the GFCI would lose power. I pinched the prongs of each breaker and it seemed to solve the problem. But after a week, the problem is occuring again. Although I doubt it, could I have a bad batch of breakers?

Not sure if this matters but the breakers feeding these three circuits are tied into a subpanel that's piggy-backed off of another subpanel.

Your opinions are apprecited.

Thanks everyone!


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

your mention of wiggling losing power and random losing power is troubling. I doubt there is anything wrong with the gfis (but anything's possible). put one in another area and see what happens, but more importantly, sounds like you need to check out the service panels thoroughly.


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Bad neutral connection feeding subpanel.


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## pghelectrician (Jun 25, 2010)

mcclary's electrical said:


> Bad neutral connection feeding subpanel.


 
I actually considered this but I'm not having any problems with any of the other circuits that are fed from the same subpanel. In total, I fed 10 circuits from the same subpanel.


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## Dennis Alwon (May 9, 2009)

I have never heard of a gfci doing that but once. I install the gfci and it would work fine. I trip the gfci using the reset and I could not reset it unless the power was off. Reset and it was fine. Te circuit had a problem downstream and when we correct the intermittent problem-- bad fountain pump-- the problem went away.


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

pghelectrician said:


> I actually considered this but I'm not having any problems with any of the other circuits that are fed from the same subpanel. In total, I fed 10 circuits from the same subpanel.


All with gfi's that have touchy circuitry in them?


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## pghelectrician (Jun 25, 2010)

There are the 3 gfci circuits that I'm having problems with. Also there are 5 afci breakered circuits as well


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## sbrn33 (Mar 15, 2007)

This sounds exactly like a line/load problem. Maybe the factory put the backs on backwards or something goofy.


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## sparky1423 (Sep 18, 2010)

I also use the slim leviton GFCIs....have you noticed the line and the loads are flipped on this product. The line is now on top of the GFCI, and the load is now on the bottom.


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