Installing a GFCI

[CaptainK]

Hi Everyone,
I have no idea why but lately I have been having these horror thoughts of my tank leaking and causing an electrical fire.
So I was thinking about attempting to install a GFCI outlet in place of the regular one that is already in the wall.
Just wanted to know if this is something that I could do or does an electrician need to do it?
If it is something as simple as buying the GFCI outlet, turning off the electricity, uninstall the normal one, instal the GFCI one, turn back the electricity..... well I think I may be able to do that.
Let me know, and also if there is anything else I should know.

Thanks,
CaptK

[nucleuscracker]

its fairly simple - turn off the electricity for that plug, pull out the old plug, hook up the new one and you good to go.

One thing that I have been doing lately is to not only connect the ground to the plug, but then also connect another ground wire from the ground on the plug to the box itself - so the box is grounded as well..... JMO




HTH

[schrocat]

Has anyone tried using the GFCI units that you connect to an existing plug?

Do they do the job also?

[icemark]

Originally posted by schrocat
Has anyone tried using the GFCI units that you connect to an existing plug?

Do they do the job also?

Can you go into more detail of what you mean. Typically you replace the existing outlet with a GFCI outlet.

The only other thing to remember when changing out a GFCI plug, is that it should either be at the first plug in the chain (for example the AC wire leaves the fuse/breaker box, runs to one plug, then to the next plug, then to the plug you are using for you tanks, then to the overhead light, Etc. You should install it in the first plug coming from the box to protect the entire line.)

The other thing to remember is if you decide its too much trouble to replace the first plug in the chain and are installing at, say the fish plug [mentioned in the last paragraph], that you need to have the line coming from the fuse/breaker box on the INPUT side of the GFCI outlet. If you get it backwards, you will not have any protection.

If you are still a little hesitant, get the guy from down the street, you know the guy that added on the second story himself and has all those tools to help you, or a qualified electrician, you are working with voltages that can kill you or cause a fire.

[schrocat]

http://www.smarthome.com/4274.html

The unit at the bottom.

[icemark]

Originally posted by schrocat
http://www.smarthome.com/4274.html

The unit at the bottom.

AHHH I see what you mean now.

As long as the plug that you are using it in is grounded, and there was sufficient current capability, the in-line GFI units should be fine.

[schrocat]

Cool.
Cheaper than an electrician visit.

[Ltspd]

If you were to install the new plug you might have a problem with the depth of the outlet box installed in the wall. GFCI's are deep plugs normally and sometimes the smaller boxes wont accept the plug themselves. Other than that they are faily simple to install, just follow the directions.

The units that Schrocat suggested works very well also.

[wgscott]

You are much better off installing a GFCI outlet. You can do this yourself with a screwdriver. Just make sure the power is turned off at the circuit breaker panel, double-check that it is by plugging in a nightlight or something, and then make sure no one is around to turn it back on to see if it works. Then just follow the instructions in the box. They cost about $11 and it should only take you 10 minutes. You can also buy a GFCI tester for about $5 at a hardware store that lets you verify that it is wired correctly.

You should (i.e., are required by today's electrical codes) have these wherever you have the possibility of exposure to water, i.e., all exterior plugs, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, etc.

95% of all electrocutions are ground-faults, and this will prevent them. (The other 5% took place in Texas ).

Also you should have a grounding wire/probe for each fish tank. You can buy these for about $12 or make one with a titanium bike spoke and some wire probably for a buck.

You don't need an electrician to do this. You probably should get an electrician if you put a GFCI in the circuit breaker panel itself. Conversely, if you insist upon getting an electrician (i.e., if you are a conservative republican with more money than brains ) then you might as well pay them to install the one in the breaker.

The plug-in-the-wall type ones are inferior because if you have a power surge or failure, they switch off and don't come back on again. I have one of these and learned the hard way (although nothing died). Don't get one of those unless you are around all day and all night, every day and night, to reset the thing. They are useful with power drills, etc. but I don't think they are good for fish tanks because of this property.

HTH

[schrocat]

Originally posted by wgscott

The plug-in-the-wall type ones are inferior because if you have a power surge or failure, they switch off and don't come back on again.

...now I'm confused.

I thought all GFCI's required a manual reset after a trip.

I would want it stay offline if it tripped, until I could investigate or mop.

[icemark]

Originally posted by wgscott
The plug-in-the-wall type ones are inferior because if you have a power surge or failure, they switch off and don't come back on again. HTH

I have never seen a GFI outlet, breaker, or in-line ever reset itself. If it did you could have all sorts of problems of it allowing current, poping, resetting, allowing current, poping, repeat forever.

[wgscott]

If a GFCI trips, it doesn't reset itself, for obvioius reasons.

However, if PG&E turns off your electricity because you only pay them $120/month, then when the electricity comes back on again, the GFCI should be on because it has not tripped.

The plug-in-the-wall type (not the wall-plug type) will trip when the electricity is turned off. They are designed to do this like the ones on hair dryers.

[wgscott]

What you want to get is this thing :

[ccull]

on what a gfci actually DOES - unlike a breaker/fuse which trip when a certain current threshold is reached, a GFCI compares the current going out the one side to the current coming back in on the other. If they don't match, then it's leaking somewhere (like through YOU) and thus it trips. I'm sure it allows a small delta, and this is a bit of a simplistic description, but hopefully you get the idea.

[schrocat]

wg,
I wrote a letter to the manufacturer to see if the product trips during an outage.

I don't see how it can function any differently than a wall unit...but I'm sure not going to risk it!

later,

[schrocat]

Ok...
I said manufacturer...I should have said distributor.

The distributor was unaware of this possible scenario, so they tested it by plugging a light into the unit...then unplugging and plugging the GFCI back in. It never tripped.

Was this really a true test?




later,

[wgscott]

All I can tell you is that the one I bought that I had on my tank at work (if I rewire the union boss will string me up by my seminiferous tubules) trips whenever there is a power outage. Thanks to PGE there are no shortages of such events. There may be other plug-into-the-wall-socket types that don't have this property. Just be forwarned. It really is easy to install the kind I posted a picture of. If you can keep fish alive you can do this yourself with one screwdriver.

[schrocat]

Originally posted by wgscott
If you can keep fish alive you can do this yourself with one screwdriver.

Ok.