Beware Bad GFCI outlets

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sparky1118

sparky1118

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Location
Massachusetts
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Master Electrician
So I had a service call yesterday and found this. Brought it to the supply houses attention and he said that they have recently had a lot of these GFCI outlets catch on fire lately. The brand is ETN
17cd3cf351a41fb76e1d811e503a5013.jpg



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sparky1118 said:
So I had a service call yesterday and found this. Brought it to the supply houses attention and he said that they have recently had a lot of these GFCI outlets catch on fire lately. The brand is ETN


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Was that an attempt at what was supposed to be "Eaton"?
 
kwired said:
Well you have now called it ETN and ENT.

Pretty sure Eaton took over what once was Cooper devices.
Click to expand...

Regardless what I called it you knew what it was so all is good and be careful if you use those crappy outlets


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Interesting picture, its almost photo shopped
Lowes carries Eaton Cooper devices and I don't care for them at all. I much prefer Leviton
FYI Lowes and Home Depot tend to carry different products/manufacturers if possible. Example HD has Milwaukee and L has Craftsman.
 
sparky1118 said:
Regardless what I called it you knew what it was so all is good and be careful if you use those crappy outlets


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I first thought you had some speech to text software failure that came up with ETN instead of Eaton, but otherwise wasn't quite certain what you had just from the image.
 
We have been using the Cooper devices for about a year. Levitons TR devices are just too difficult to insert a cord end. I always liked Leviton but enough customers complained. We have had no problems with any gfci as pictured. Even the one that had been operating at 240v for some time.
 
tom baker said:
Interesting picture, its almost photo shopped
Lowes carries Eaton Cooper devices and I don't care for them at all. I much prefer Leviton
FYI Lowes and Home Depot tend to carry different products/manufacturers if possible. Example HD has Milwaukee and L has Craftsman.
Click to expand...

Yes it does look photoshopped but i am the one that took the pictures. Definitely not photoshopped haha


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ptonsparky said:
We have been using the Cooper devices for about a year. Levitons TR devices are just too difficult to insert a cord end. I always liked Leviton but enough customers complained. We have had no problems with any gfci as pictured. Even the one that had been operating at 240v for some time.
Click to expand...
They do work @ 240 volts indefinitely AFAIK.

One job the contractor asked for a 50 amp GFCI protected receptacle on the temp service. I gave him a 14-50 on 50 amp GFCI breaker, as most of us probably would. Come back some time later and find he replaced the receptacle with a 5-15 GFCI and replaced the conductors with 12 AWG but still connected to the 50 amp GFCI breaker. He had a air compressor that was dual volt and only needed to turn a switch to change voltage. It often tripped 20 amp breaker @ 120 volts but he never changed the cord/cord cap when changing voltage. :eek:
 
Here's what I see...
You have an interior box cut into an exterior wall, with a sponge based seal on a WP cover that is up against a porous weathered wood surface. Most likely that seal against the wood failed and water got into the box, shorting out the line side connections, so the GFCI tripping made no difference in the demise of it.
 
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