Make sure that is the only GFCI outlet you have for the breaker. I made a mistake of replacing all the outlets to GFCI outlets and none of them worked, so I had to put everything back except 1.
Yes, thank you for that clarity. We went from renter to owner recently; and we inherited a circuit extended from the kitchen to outside with two GFCI receptacles installed out there. Wasn't long after moving in that they failed, cutting power to our water softener. No one told us it was wrong to have two GFCI's on the same circuit, not even the home inspector.
I did it, replaced an old worn-out GFCI in my bathroom with a new one. Your video was incredibly helpful. Saved a couple hundred bucks easy by doing it myself. Thanks!
Thx a lot All Very interesting, I am finding. I don't know which outlet is attached to a g f c I except the nearest one which is the utility room. And just 1 of 2 gfci thruput the lower level. Plugged in a space heater. After a couple of years of doing same and now those 2 outletsaredead. The nearest GFCI. For washer and dryer 10' away has been reset still no power. Hoping you have a suggestion!? Gary
A. Way of finding the line with power off is using a continuity tester or multimeter set to ohns zeo being continuity . You put test leads from each pair towards neutral towards ground and when you get the reading that is line since at the panel the neutral and ground share a common connection . Also the refrigerator is not normally on gfi protection . To find which line is feeding the fridge you have a receptacle. Tester in the fridge out let then test each remaining. wire with continuity tester to find fridge . A bulb will give continuity quite often I would test from switch keg to neutral to. Find out which one was recessed lighting getting the dinner switch versus which one was switch receptacle with out a receptacle tester you will get no continuity reading and will be the switched receptacle . You get continuity from a closed switch a fuse or light. Bulb . Up. Gfi is required for any kitchen counter top receptacles or like the editor of the video six from a water source . Bath room receptacles have been for past twenty years a seperate gfi Circuit .
Scott, I really appreciate the time you take to make outstanding videos that are clear and informative. I've learned a tremendous amount from them. Thank you. By trade I'm a commercial pilot (47 yrs). You would make a great flight instructor.
You lost me on which wires were line. I saw 1 red wire that was hot. How was the white wire also hot/line? Identifying which wire is which seems the most important part.
You'll have a hot and neutral coming from the panel, which are called the line side of the outlet. All other outlets fed from this outlet are not directly connected to the panel and are therfore the load side of this outlet.
I'll rate this video as a 10. I never use the wire push-in holes unless they have retaining screws. When you push the outlet back into the workbox, you can strain the wires and cause the wire(s) to come out. Your list of tools every weekend warrior (DIYer) needs is missing at least one hundred more. That LED light is very nice and helpful. I also use an LED headband type too. When I'm ready to install the receptacle, I put an "S" curve on the wires. That way, the wires easily fold into the workbox with less strain. A small-diameter wood dowl with a grove at one end help to get the wires into the box.
For a while, I thought that the outlets in 2 of our 3 bathrooms were not GFCI. I figured out why yesterday. The bathroom in our upstairs hallway had been renovated twice, in 2002 and 2019, but always had a GFCI. A few days ago, my toothbrush stopped working, it would not take a charge. The GFCI was not tripped. It wasn’t until yesterday that I noticed the light on the GFCI receptacle was not on. I immediately defaulted to loose wiring or a faulty receptacle, until I looked at the breaker box. There was only one breaker called “bath plug,” and it was tripped manually due us currently in the process of renovating both the bathroom in the downstairs hallway and the master bath, which were both on the same circuit! This was why my toothbrush was not charging. Due to the plugs in every bathroom in our house being on one circuit, only the first one in that line had to be a GFCI receptacle! I thought I was staring at a massive code violation, (no GFCI near two sinks) when in reality they were all connected to the GFCI in the third bathroom!
Question I’m DIY I’ve a outage in my outlets in my passage and living room I change out the breaker and now I’ve power in my outlets but when I plug in my tv it flys my breaker how do I fix that
It's good safety practice, for outlets and light switches that have exposed screw heads on the side that come in contact with the wires, to wrap everything in electrical tape, to prevent accidental shocks. The screw attached to the clamp for the red wire that brings power into the outlet is hot and it's before the GFCI protections. It could be a finger, a screw driver, an unfortunately-lucky splash of water, or a small rodent, but anything that come in contact with it will only be protected by the breaker in your panel box.
If you make sure you strip the wire the proper length so that when you push them into the back there is NO exposed copper there is no need to wrap the screws with electrical tape. Saves a lot of time.
@@noneya3504 If you look at around 3:49 in the video, this particular outlet uses metal screws to clamp together two metal plates that lock down the wire. The metal plates, and thus the screws, are conductive. Perhaps a better angle is at 4:06. The shock potential that tape prevents isn't exposed wire protruding from the back of the outlet, but rather the locking screws along the sides of the device.
I did the same thing when I first bought my house about 10 years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't know about the load side being protected too, so I installed more GFCI's than I actually needed.
Great video as usual! Hope you're having a good weekend. I subscribed a while back because your vides are informative and just all around great. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us all.
First one from the breaker. Pull all the wires out and separate. Cap them temporarily with wire nuts. Turn the power back on. That outlet's line wire should have power but the other outlets should have no power because they depend on that outlet to get power.
After you inserted the wire into the plug there was some copper wire showing where they removed the insulation and it was too long for the plug you put it in should you electrical tape those areas
The short bit of exposed wire will not hurt anything as long as you make sure all your bare ground wires are positioned where they can not touch. Having said that it is always best to cut your wires to the correct length so that you do not have any exposed/bare wire especially a black or red wire.
Could you install the original "hot line wires" into the "Line Side" and simply "daisy chain/connect" downstream ADDITIONAL GFCI outlets using JUST the "line Side" for each? Wouldn't this allow each of the GFCI outlets to work independently and correctly?
I’m sorry because I really hate to be this guy but.... (1) A voltage tester can only detect the presence of voltage. It cannot detect the absence of voltage. Turning off a breaker and using a voltage tester doesn’t prove there is no voltage present at the outlet. It just proves the voltage tester didn’t make a noise. You should, as best practice, use a proving unit and, failing that, a multi meter. (2) you really need to explain that, for the line side, the neutral must come from the same cable as the “hot wire”. (3) you wired up the earth to the receptacle but, where does it loop to the additional load side receptacles?
I know this is an older video and you've improved a lot since then but I have a couple suggestions for you. First, it's a lot safer to connect your ground wire to your new device first followed by neutrals and hots, that way you're protected from anyone possibly energizing the circuit by mistake. Hots should always be the last wires connected. Second, assuming that you have proper grounding system going all the way back to your main panel, you can identify which wire is your power source without temporarily energizing the circuit doing a continuity test with the neutrals and grounds. If a neutral wire has continuity with it's ground wire, then it's hot wire is always the one feeding the box.
Great work. The only thing I noticed was either push the wire fully in the holes or cut down the exposed part so once it's in no exposed wire would be showing.
@@henrythe83rd18 yes, it turned out ok, but sparks flew out of the outlet, yet it didn’t throw the breaker! It was very odd, all of the upstairs lights, on 2 separate breakers went off for about 5 minutes though the breaker didn’t throw. It was strange. We replaced the outlet and everything was good. Thank you for your kind comment. Today I installed 6 GFI outlets for my daughter’s new house built in 1955, so the outlets aren’t grounded. I am no electrician, but they are young and not high earners, so hiring one would be burdensome. My point, I am fully tired of electricity for the day! 😁
@@lilolmecj Yeah the ground is definitely life saver. That is why codes have changed and better practices are done by professionals in the trade. my point exactly. 'am glad you're all ok.
Thanks so much for taking your time to explain how to replace outlet with GFCI very clear and simple ,also following the cautions procedures. Thanks so much, Here I live In London Ontario Canada. Have a good day
Good to have a GFCI tester. It's just like the outlet tester, except it has a resistor connected to a button switch. Push the button, it purposely causes a ground fault. You plug one of these into one of those downstream outlets, push the button, and make sure the GFCI trips.
I really appreciate your video. My parents home was built in the 80's. I tried the gfci and i put the two load wires going on the load side the the other two wires going on the line side. I tried last night for a long time and still no luck. I see you have 7 wires total. I only have 5. Any advice would be great. Thank you sir.
A couple questions for you if you don't mind? 1. At around 4:00 you said: "we'll be using all four of those holes" before beginning work on the line side. But I think you only used two wires on that end. Have I misunderstood something? 2. Why/ when would one use: - Two LIVE & Four LOAD (As you did), As opposed to, - Four LIVE & Four LOAD, vs - Four LIVE & Two LOAD, vs - Two LIVE & Two LOAD etc etc... Thank you so much. I'm just trying to learn! 😊
Question: can you change all three of those outlets to GFCI outlets? Should you only change the first of the daisy chain or may I make the daisy change GFCI outlets? Please let me know. I have five outlets all within 6 feet of a sink, however only two of them were GFCI outlets and three were regular. Not sure if I should make all 5 GFCI or just change the two.
As long as the first in the chain is a GFCI and they properly are wired to the "Load" side of the GFCI you should be covered with the ground fault capability on the normal receptacles downstream.
That was a little too fast. You lost me with the two neutral, and the two red line wires you said were the hot? Great job but remember some of us are really new to this and the greater the detail the better. Thanks!
Nice and informative video. I do have some questions regarding it though. The first question, for the load side of the GFCI socket, are the following 2 sockets downstream to the GFCI socket connected in parallel? It looks to me they are. If the sockets downstream to the GFCI socket are in series, would you just have one hot and neutral connected to the load side of the GFCI socket? This goes with the assumption for sockets connected in series, the hot side of each socket downstream are all connected in series and, the same for the neutral side of each socket downstream.
They would NOT be in parallel because the wiring design is not changed at all I.e. 1 source to the next outlet and then from that outlet to the next outlet. The wires off the GFCI are still providing one source (in series) from the GFCI outlet.
Hi Scott, thanks for sharing your knowledge. I want to install a GFCI mid-circuit with non-GFCI receptacles present before and after the location. The circuit is already protected from AFCI breaker in the sub-paneI. Therefore, do I need to protect the plugs downstream using the load terminals as well or just protect this one outlet using only the line terminals? Also, the wires in the box are short and need extending. Can I just use a Wago to simply lengthen each of the 4 wires for attachment or need to use 3-way connectors in a pig-tail configuration? Thank you very much!
@@yewkiamakuahui2296 how you wire the GFCI into the circuit depends on what it protects. In a circuit with 5 recepticles, you can wire it so it is number 3 and protects only number 3 or you can wire it as number 1 and protect the rest (Manufacturers restrict the number of downstream of fed recepticles to around 5). By pigtailing or "T" tapping off the circuit, you protect only that outlet. By running power through the GFCI (done here) you protect all those down stream or fed by that GFCI. I hope that was a good explantation for you.
Question: Im looking into buying a older home (1930s) and in the housing inspection, it said that the outlets in the kicthen and bathroom were not GFCI, so im buying some to install myself. So the question is, would something this old have 4 wires to even install the GFCI properly? What happens if they don't?
I have a similar single steel gang box in bathroom near on left side of sink. Practically no room to very little room between GFCI and the Box. How do I make sure the Screw Terminals won't short by accidentally touching the metal box?
My LG refrigerator is 10ish years old and just started doing the same thing! The solution that worked for me was to plug it in to non GFI switch. It seems to be working fine now!
Thanks for the helpful videos. For the case in the video, do you need to identify with neutral goes with the "line"? If so, how do you go about identifying it?
I have a working GFI tester plug that does not light up in a GFI duplex but the duplex still provides power to my garbage disposal; BUT the bottom duplex will not run anything. What is wrong and why does the GFI tester not show anything?
I was searching about GFCI and found this>>>>> Can you put 2 GFCI outlets on the same circuit? Having 2 GFCIs on the same circuit has no added benefit and can cause the occupant confusion when it comes to tracking down a tripped GFCI outlet. When the GFCI is installed on the lead outlet, there is no need to wire multiple GFCIs on the same circuit for residential use.
I really dont understand how to know which need to be GFCI. My kitchen is similar to yours small and has 4 outlets about 2 feet from each other on the wall opposite the sink, note sink is about 6 ft across on an island. The wall you were leaning on in your video connects over to the laundry room in my house and the plumbing runs through it. Do I need all of them to be GFCi? Only 1 of 5 total counterside kitchen outlets has a GFCI today.
Hey man, super helpful vid my buddy is an electrician and helped me out with the basics but a video definitely goes a long way. I was curious though, my second floor isnt grounded, basically costs an absolute fortune to rewire and so im just using GFCI as a safety measure, just need to make sure all the downstream outlets arent connected at the load Any tips for telling where each outlet is on the ciecuit?
You can thank the RU-vid algorithm for my view/like. I searched for "install GFCI" 7 hours ago and your video popped into my recommended about 3 minutes before I was ready to start.
My outlet in my kitchen was buzzing so looking it up it says old wiring so unplugged and have never used it again. I only have 2 outlets (older house) can I replace the outlet.
Great video, Scott. One question in particular; if I have the same situation, could I convert all outlets to GFI? I see in the video you only did one, as the others were daisy chained. Is there a downside to converting all to GFI?
GFCI RECEPTACLES ARE INSTALLED WHERE NEEDED. THER IS NO NEED TO CONVERT EVERY SINGLE OUTLET INTO A GFCI. BUT GFCI CAN PROTECT OTHER REGULAR OUTLEST THAT ARE TIED TO THE GFCI AS A FORM OF PROTECTION. IM NOT AN ELECTRICIAN, BUT I DO ELECTRICAL WORK.
You might want to check out the AFCI , which are required for bedroom and other convenience outlets, if your concerned about upgrading to code. GFCI are required where water/ moisture is an issue, outside, bathrooms, garages, kitchens. Which you most likely have. Good luck
I have to replace a few of these outlets ,and Boom you came and explained an easy way to do it safely ,Thanks so much, I'm writing from London Ontario ,Canada, note : I'm not an electrician
Thanks for the video - very helpful. Question - must there be 4 wires on the load side and two on the line side? My outlets have four in total (two hot, two neutral).
I didn't like how you put the wires inside because I saw that one wire was exposed too much past the outlet and that's a NO NO.... I'm not a electrician but I learned that when you cut and place the wires in its hole or make a hook to place around the screws, it should not be exposed past the outlet. let's teach the beginners correctly and please people make sure the wires are inside the hole completely and or make sure the hooks are completely tight around the screw don't expose too much wire just enough to get a good connection and not too little. on the outlet itself there should also be a area to measure how much to strip...God bless and as long as the power is off people you can achieve this easy replacement outlets even if you are a woman like me....😊
seem brand new safety outlets I have been all bad reset fuse in them no then at all, had to switch to a stander outlet lower fuse box switch to 15amp tested work well pop switch, waiting on the new cover for its stander 3way plug type outlet... I try 3 safety outlets of they were all bad.
You post really great, straight-forward videos. I really enjoy them. But I have a question, my outdoor receptacles are connected to the GFCI of my circuit breaker, which is probably common. Can they be replaced with GFCI receptacles or the normal one which they currently are? I noticed that they all have rusted connections and stripped screws. I also want to add an outlet cover for them as well, which some of the covers (TAYMAC) come with a GFCI receptacles. Please let me know when you get a moment. Thank you
AND I WOULD OF A LAYER OF ELECTRICAL TAPE AROUND TO COVER ALL OF THOSE CONNECTIONS. JUST BECAUSE I SAW ONE OF THE WHITE WIRES SHOWING A LITTLE BIT OF COPPER.
But that’s more work to mess around in your breaker box. I have an arc fault breaker for my bedroom and I wanna now add a GFCI. I’m not gonna mess around in the breaker box.
I want to do this in the home that I just moved into to save me some money, but you kind of moved pretty fast for me testing those red wires. Does it matter which holes they go into as long as they are all on the same side of the outlet?
I switched out 2 bathroom outlets to gfci but I cannot get power to the outlets. I've checked my breaker to ensure it's on but still no power to the outlets. Any idea what's wrong?
Maybe the gfci is the wrong amp? I'm fairly certain you can use a 20 amp gfci on a 15 amp breaker but the opposite isn't true. So if your breaker is 20 amp and you are using a 15 amp gfci it shouldn't work. I'm not a certified electrician or anything but it might be something you could check I've seen it happen before.
I need a little tradition what is the best thing for me to do I live in Florida I can't really find a cheap electrician that I can afford so what should I do
This video was extremely helpful. I have a question which is how I found this video. I am replacing the outlet cover on my porch (which I am changing it to a GFCI after watching this). The breaker for the outlet was not marked so I had to do them 1 at a time. After finding it and turned it back on, the 3 (maybe more) outlets on the line are not working. Checked them with the tester and all are dead. I have made sure it’s not tripped and reset the 2 other GFCI’s inside the house and still no power. The line was working before turning breakers on and off, what could be the problem??? I would appreciate anyone’s input.
FIRST, LOOK AND FIND THE AMPS OF THE BREAKER. 15 AMPS OR 20 AMPS? 2ND. MAKE SURE YOU TRACE OR FIND THE WIRES THAT COME FROM THE BREAKER BOX AND MAKE SURE YOU CONNECT THEM TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR GFCI (LINE OR LOAD) THEY NEED TO BE CONNECTED TO THE LINE PART OF YOUR GFCI. THOSE DEAD OUTLESTS ARE PLACED BEFORE THE GFCI OUTLET, OR THEY ARE PLACED AFTER THE FGCI? ALSO, GET YOUR OUTLET TESTER TOOL, YOULL NEEDED BEFORE AND AFTER THE WIRING. THE TESTER WILL TELL YOU IF YOUR CONNECTION IS CORRECT. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TqTNJUT_lKg.html
You have 4 load wires is that because you have two outlets downstream? If so is it possible to run two load wires from the GFCI to the second outlet and from there run two other wires to third ?
Yep it totally is. You can chain multiple of them that way. In fact, I’m surprised that he have 4 wires, that’s not the most efficient way to wire this up.
I live in an older home with knob and tube wiring. Is it possible to still be able to install a GFCI outlet in this case? I had the electrical in the basement replaced with Romex, but I'm sure if the wiring to my outside patio was replaced as well, that runs out from the basement level. Great video! Liked!
