I am finishing construction on a house with 2-1/2 baths. I supplied the baths via 3 GFI breakers including 3 Nutone/Broan exhaust fans.
PROBLEM: When I turn off the bath exhaust fans the breakers trip. It does not happen every time, but about every other day one of them will trip.
I replaced one of the fan switches (120V, 15A, utility grade) with a (277V, 20A, Commercial grade) and it improved the situation noticeably, but it still occasionally trips. I am considering trying a hospital grade switch as a possible solution.
Does any one have any experience or suggestions?
Replies
My bath fan trips the GFCI too, also sometimes the electric razor does it. Always when switched off. Very annoying. I haven't taken care of the problem yet, but was going to replace the GFCI, since two things trip it.
I have three different GFI's that are tripping. I think it is the arcing in the switches. Electric motors generate electricity (counter EMF) when they are turned off, and GFI's are very sensitive.
I think that the NEC requires the entire bathroom to be GFI protected. This is the first time I did this. I usually just protect the receptacles.
At my sisters house I had wired the exhaust fan through a GFIC outlet and half of the time the outlet would trip when the fan was turned on. My sister hired an electrician (I am out of state and was only there for a week to gut and rebuild her bathroom) to fix the problem. He just replaced the outlet. He told her that a lot of the GFIC breakers and outlets were bad (too sensitive) and that he has had to replace quite a number of them. No problem since. He was also supportive of not using a breaker for a bathroom since when it trips you are in the shower, in the dark and have to find the panel to reset it. He liked using a GFIC outlet to feed the bathroom.
My question is why is are the fans on the GFCI?
Inductive loads are often a problem with false GFCI's.
A fan needs to be GFI protected if within a certain distance over water. The solution to the lights going out is to have the light on a different circuit, or the light on the same circuit but on the line side of the GFI if they are sharing a box.
Where does it say that?
The closes thing that I have seen is that the code requires equipment to be installed according to the manufactures requirements. And I have heard most show lights have GFCI requirements listed.
I have not looked at any vent fans.
I wonder if either people are just making assumptions that the fan should be GFCI protected.
Well, I am stumped. I know that I read it, but leafing through Mullins (99) and NEC (2002) I can find no reference. What comes to mind is that if a ceiling fan is with in 6, 12, inches of the edge of a bath or shower, it must be GFI protected. Whether this was in the instructions with a fan or in a consumer oriented electrical wiring book, I don't remember, but I do know that I did read it.
OK, I searched and located it on page 190 of the Home Depot 1-2-3 home repair book (no laughing please), where they state fans located in wet locations should be GFI protected. I just did it that way without checking the actual regs, and since it passed inspection, assumed that was the right way to do it. Overkill maybe, but not required.
True it is easier to reset with a GFCI outlet but I have the SqD QO GFI's and they don't trip in this nusance situation. Consider the price. 7 bucks for the bargain bin outlet and 20 to 35 for the GFCI breaker. I just think there is a difference. Plus they are a lot easier to wire. No more 10 lbs in the 5 lb box."The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships-- and sealing wax--Of cabbages-- and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot-- and whether pigs have wings"
Sounds like you may have one or more staples hammered in too tight. If I was doing a service call on this I would disconnect most everything and do a high pot test on the runs if I couldn't find the problem in the first 20 minutes or so. Using a high pot you could eliminate runs and equipment in a logical order and isolate the problem quickly.
I replaced the bathroom outlets in my last house with GFI's. Once I did, everytime the hall light was switched it'd trip the GFI. It was on the same circuit.
Tried everything, finally just wired around the GFI outlet for the hall light, told it wasn't uncomon, and wasn't dangerous. Later, working in the other bathroom with the breaker off I got shocked. Spent 4 hours trying to figure out why. Had my wife's uncle who's an electrician come in to help me figure it out. 4 more hours, and he hadn't figured it out, which made me not feel so dumb.
He came back the next day, said I was thinking about it, know exactly what the problem is. He was right, the hall light wasn't wired right, the neutral wire came from the bedroom light circuit, not the bathroom circuit. He helped me pull out the 12-2 between the hall switches and put in 12-3 so we could run the neutral right. I'd have never figured this out. Someone saved some wire. Cost me about 10 hrs, but I learned something.
Probably not your problem, but it's another possibility.
Sometimes these problems can traced to a loose neutral connection on the circuit/s. I have corrected more than one by just snugging up the setscrew on the neutral bar. This is more of a problem with shared neutrals but it can happen even without it. Specialized equipment can help greatly.
What sort of specialized equipment?
Is there anything you can do with just a voltmeter to find this kind of problem?
I'm fascinated with the electrical trade. If I didn't run a desk, I'd probably wire buildings.
The little electrical training I did have one of the things our instructor recommended is if you can shut off the main breaker, the first thing he always did was open the box. Shut off power, and check the tightness of every screw in the box. Said it always amazed him how many problems this fixed.
I have the same problem with a Square-D Homeline GFCI breaker and a ceiling fan. Wall 3-speed switch will trip the breaker sometimes, but not others. Seems to depend on how slow or quick the knob is turned from one setting to the next (usually trips between speeds if turning knob too slow). I've just interpreted it as oversensitivity in the breaker combined with induction in the fan/switch (after checking all the wiring). I'm planning on just subbing in a std. breaker for this one (since the circuit doesn't need GFCI protection by code until years down the road, when I convert the room over to a garage).
Some say the glass is half empty, others half full. I say "Just let me finish the %&$^ thing and pour me another"