Garage GFCI's question.

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Some history becuse cut and pasting is easy. :) I will keep it too dwelling units.

2002 NEC

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for
Personnel.


(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and
20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in

(1) through (8) shall have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection for personnel.

(1) Bathrooms

(2) Garages, and also accessory buildings that have a floor
located at or below grade level not intended as habitable
rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas,
and areas of similar use

Exception No. 1: Receptacles that are not readily accessible.

Exception No. 2: A single receptacle or a duplex receptacle
for two appliances located within dedicated space for
each appliance that, in normal use, is not easily moved
from one place to another and that is cord-and-plug connected
in accordance with 400.7(A)(6), (A)(7), or (A)(8).


Receptacles installed under the exceptions to
210.8(A)(2) shall not be considered as meeting the requirements
of 210.52(G).

(3) Outdoors

Exception: Receptacles that are not readily accessible and
are supplied by a dedicated branch circuit for electric
snow-melting or deicing equipment shall be permitted to be
installed in accordance with the applicable provisions of
Article 426.

(4) Crawl spaces ? at or below grade level

(5) Unfinished basements ? for purposes of this section,
unfinished basements are defined as portions or areas of
the basement not intended as habitable rooms and limited
to storage areas, work areas, and the like

Exception No. 1: Receptacles that are not readily accessible.

Exception No. 2: A single receptacle or a duplex receptacle
for two appliances located within dedicated space for
each appliance that, in normal use, is not easily moved
from one place to another and that is cord-and-plug connected
in accordance with 400.7(A)(6), (A)(7), or (A)(8).

Exception No. 3: A receptacle supplying only a permanently
installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system shall
not be required to have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection.

Receptacles installed under the exceptions to
210.8(A)(5) shall not be considered as meeting the requirements
of 210.52(G).

(6) Kitchens ? where the receptacles are installed to serve
the countertop surfaces

(7) Wet bar sinks ? where the receptacles are installed to
serve the countertop surfaces and are located within 1.8
m (6 ft) of the outside edge of the wet bar sink.

(8) Boathouses
Click to expand...



2005 NEC there were changes ....

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for
Personnel.


(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and
20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in
(1) through (8) shall have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection for personnel.

(1) Bathrooms

(2) Garages, and also accessory buildings that have a floor
located at or below grade level not intended as habitable
rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas,
and areas of similar use

Exception No. 1 to (2): Receptacles that are not readily
accessible.

Exception No. 2 to (2): A single receptacle or a duplex receptacle
for two appliances located within dedicated space for
each appliance that, in normal use, is not easily moved from
one place to another and that is cord-and-plug connected in
accordance with 400.7(A)(6), (A)(7), or (A)(8).


Receptacles installed under the exceptions to 210.8(A)(2)
shall not be considered as meeting the requirements of
210.52(G)

(3) Outdoors

Exception to (3): Receptacles that are not readily accessible
and are supplied by a dedicated branch circuit for
electric snow-melting or deicing equipment shall be permitted
to be installed in accordance with 426.28.

(4) Crawl spaces ? at or below grade level

(5) Unfinished basements ? for purposes of this section,
unfinished basements are defined as portions or areas of the
basement not intended as habitable rooms and limited to
storage areas, work areas, and the like

Exception No. 1 to (5): Receptacles that are not readily
accessible.

Exception No. 2 to (5): A single receptacle or a duplex receptacle
for two appliances located within dedicated space for
each appliance that, in normal use, is not easily moved from
one place to another and that is cord-and-plug connected in
accordance with 400.7(A)(6), (A)(7), or (A)(8).

Exception No. 3 to (5): A receptacle supplying only a permanently
installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system shall not
be required to have ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection.

Receptacles installed under the exceptions to 210.8(A)(5)
shall not be considered as meeting the requirements of
210.52(G).


(6) Kitchens ? where the receptacles are installed to serve
the countertop surfaces

(7) Laundry, utility, and wet bar sinks ? where the receptacles
are installed within 1.8 m (6 ft) of the outside
edge of the sink

(8) Boathouses
Click to expand...

2008 NEC Notice the loss of many exceptions.

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for
Personnel.

(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and
20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in
(1) through (8) shall have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection for personnel.

(1) Bathrooms

(2) Garages, and also accessory buildings that have a floor
located at or below grade level not intended as habitable
rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas,
and areas of similar use

(3) Outdoors

Exception to (3): Receptacles that are not readily accessible
and are supplied by a dedicated branch circuit for
electric snow-melting or deicing equipment shall be permitted
to be installed in accordance with 426.28.

(4) Crawl spaces ? at or below grade level

(5) Unfinished basements ? for purposes of this section,
unfinished basements are defined as portions or areas of
the basement not intended as habitable rooms and limited
to storage areas, work areas, and the like

Exception to (5): A receptacle supplying only a permanently
installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system shall
not be required to have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection.

Receptacles installed under the exception to
210.8(A)(5) shall not be considered as meeting the
requirements of 210.52(G).

(6) Kitchens ? where the receptacles are installed to serve
the countertop surfaces

(7) Laundry, utility, and wet bar sinks ? where the receptacles
are installed within 1.8 m (6 ft) of the outside
edge of the sink

(8) Boathouses
Click to expand...

2011 NEC

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for
Personnel. Ground-fault circuit-interruption for personnel
shall be provided as required in 210.8(A) through (C). The
ground-fault circuit-interrupter shall be installed in a
readily accessible location.

(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-
ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in
210.8(A)(1) through (8) shall have ground-fault circuitinterrupter
protection for personnel.

(1) Bathrooms

(2) Garages, and also accessory buildings that have a floor
located at or below grade level not intended as habitable
rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas,
and areas of similar use

(3) Outdoors

Exception to (3): Receptacles that are not readily accessible
and are supplied by a branch circuit dedicated to
electric snow-melting, deicing, or pipeline and vessel heating
equipment shall be permitted to be installed in accordance
with 426.28 or 427.22, as applicable.

(4) Crawl spaces ? at or below grade level

(5) Unfinished basements ? for purposes of this section,
unfinished basements are defined as portions or areas of
the basement not intended as habitable rooms and limited
to storage areas, work areas, and the like

Exception to (5): A receptacle supplying only a permanently
installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system shall
not be required to have ground-fault circuit-interrupter
protection.



Receptacles installed under the exception to
210.8(A)(5) shall not be considered as meeting the
requirements of 210.52(G).

(6) Kitchens? where the receptacles are installed to serve
the countertop surfaces

(7) Sinks ? located in areas other than kitchens where
receptacles are installed within 1.8 m (6 ft) of the outside
edge of the sink
(8) Boathouses
Click to expand...
 
Are they using a surge-protected power strip on that GFCI? Sometimes, it ain't the fridge, but the power strip that is causing the nuisance tripping.
 
These would be great for the customers who never seem to know why the bath receptacles are out. An audible alarm in the house would work well and save them the phone call and not waste my time.
 
Those alarm receptacles are cool. I've needed those in the past. I got blamed for the loss of 10K worth of medicine that a doctors office kept in a mini-fridge. They were keeping $10K worth of medicine in a $50 wal-mart mini-fridge, and its my fault when something goes wrong??? :rant:

hurk27 said:
Or someone installed one of those cheap Menard's GFCI receptacles, change it to a Leviton and the problem will go away if it is an inductive kick back problem, but like posted above and even wiring in the cabinet of the fridge could be getting wet from condensation, a meger between hot or neutral and the EGC will show if it is this problem.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I've seen it in my own house. Some amateur hack (me) installed those in my basement, and they would trip on a whim.

edward said:
The OP can always install a small relay with NC contact and a bell that will be connected on the load side of a regular GFCI.
Click to expand...

Yes, but then you need another source of power, and an enclousure, and wiring, etc. The labor savings has to be worth a $20 receptacle.
 
steve66 said:
. Yes, but then you need another source of power, and an enclousure, and wiring, etc. The labor savings has to be worth a $20 receptacle.
Click to expand...

You can still use the same power source it doesn't have to be a separate source.

i agree to the labor savings, but i only mentioned it only if the customer wants a louder alarm.
 
steve66 said:
Those alarm receptacles are cool. I've needed those in the past. I got blamed for the loss of 10K worth of medicine that a doctors office kept in a mini-fridge. They were keeping $10K worth of medicine in a $50 wal-mart mini-fridge, and its my fault when something goes wrong??? :rant: .
Click to expand...


The temperature alarm would still be better protection, and if there is $10K of product being protected I would even go for an alarm system with autodialer to call someone if it fails after hours, weekend or holiday. None of the other methods will do any good if no one is there to hear the alarm. Even a $5000 cooler can fail or the power could just fail and the product will be no good.
 
Thanks all for the reply.
It looks like the customer is stuck with the GFCI, which is both a shame and one more reason where more and more I see the NEC as the big brother, where people have to be protected from themself.
I mean the single receptacle for that particular appliance(as the exception in the 2005 code) is pretty reasonable, but NOOOO, what if the owner unplugs it and plugs in a saw? RIGHT?
Well the same owner can just replace the GFCI anyway, and it'll be worse.
As for me I told the customer that 99% of the EC's will replace the GFCI without a second thought, but as much as I hate it, I won't do it.
He'll probably just replace it himself and most likely wire it wrong, but hey, it's all good, big brother takes care of us right?
 
kwired said:
The temperature alarm would still be better protection, and if there is $10K of product being protected I would even go for an alarm system with autodialer to call someone if it fails after hours, weekend or holiday. None of the other methods will do any good if no one is there to hear the alarm. Even a $5000 cooler can fail or the power could just fail and the product will be no good.
Click to expand...

I don't have a freezer but I do have three things I use a sensaphone 1104 on, and it still has two more in puts if I ever do decide to get a freezer, I use these on stand alone lift stations and use the power failure, a float switch for my sump as it is critical if it fails my basement will flood, and a thermostat sensor for temperature alarm if my inverter back up on my furnace doesn't kick in, or if the battery fails, these things are great for home or business monitoring I even have a small motion detector wired to it, and it will call my cell then my wifes, then my sisters.

You have 4 inputs that can be figured NO or NC loop, and two built in alarms one is the mic which can trigger the unit on any sound or setting the sensitivity low can limit it to listen for other alarms, , the other is power failure and if put on its own breaker will let you know if you lost utility or putting it on a critical circuit will monitor both that circuit and or utility.

There are many sensors that give you options as to what you want to monitor and dial out for, and allot of flexibility from as simple as using dry contacts or variable resistance inputs for temp alarms, and its totally programmable, I was also thinking about getting an annunciator type smoke alarm with dry output contacts to monitor for fire when away from the house.

The 1100 series is dated and out of production but there are much surplus still out there and can be had for cheap, I grabbed 6 of them just yard sailing, and see them all the time on e-bay or other supply places on the net, I paid 10 bucks a piece for the ones I picked up at a yard sale, but newer models are pricey but if you have a call for a dialer with many options just go to www.sensaphone.com and get a model that fits your need, the 1104 is a 4 channel while the 1108 is a 8 channel.
 
hurk27 said:
I don't have a freezer but I do have three things I use a sensaphone 1104 on, and it still has two more in puts if I ever do decide to get a freezer, I use these on stand alone lift stations and use the power failure, a float switch for my sump as it is critical if it fails my basement will flood, and a thermostat sensor for temperature alarm if my inverter back up on my furnace doesn't kick in, or if the battery fails, these things are great for home or business monitoring I even have a small motion detector wired to it, and it will call my cell then my wifes, then my sisters.

You have 4 inputs that can be figured NO or NC loop, and two built in alarms one is the mic which can trigger the unit on any sound or setting the sensitivity low can limit it to listen for other alarms, , the other is power failure and if put on its own breaker will let you know if you lost utility or putting it on a critical circuit will monitor both that circuit and or utility.

There are many sensors that give you options as to what you want to monitor and dial out for, and allot of flexibility from as simple as using dry contacts or variable resistance inputs for temp alarms, and its totally programmable, I was also thinking about getting an annunciator type smoke alarm with dry output contacts to monitor for fire when away from the house.

The 1100 series is dated and out of production but there are much surplus still out there and can be had for cheap, I grabbed 6 of them just yard sailing, and see them all the time on e-bay or other supply places on the net, I paid 10 bucks a piece for the ones I picked up at a yard sale, but newer models are pricey but if you have a call for a dialer with many options just go to www.sensaphone.com and get a model that fits your need, the 1104 is a 4 channel while the 1108 is a 8 channel.
Click to expand...

also www.smarthome.com has many types of monitoring systems that are good on the wallet from simple to very complicated, not a bad thing to know about as I install quit a few systems mostly simple alerting systems for home owners who go away for the winter or for people who do allot of traveling and or many business, many of these are simple systems and you can do a fast turn around for quick money. dialers give the customer a way to do self monitoring without having to pay a monthly fee for a monitoring service or they in most cases can be set up for a monitoring service many on a per call base or monthly fee.
 
Last edited:
Strife said:
I got a customer who's got a refrigerator in the garage plugged in a GFI receptacle.
Apparently the refrigerator keeps tripping the GFI every couple days or so. Biggest problem is not having to reset the GFI, but rather by the time they notice refrigerator goes warm.
As far as I know every receptacle in a garage has to be GFI protected. Is there an exception to that regarding refrigerators?
I have to go there this afternoon so I don't have much time to do research on the code, so if anyone has a code reference I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

this is what an inspector told me to tell HO's with Ref/freezer that trips a GFCI ... " they need a new one"
 
Strife said:
Thanks all for the reply.
It looks like the customer is stuck with the GFCI, which is both a shame and one more reason where more and more I see the NEC as the big brother, where people have to be protected from themself.
I mean the single receptacle for that particular appliance(as the exception in the 2005 code) is pretty reasonable, but NOOOO, what if the owner unplugs it and plugs in a saw? RIGHT?
Well the same owner can just replace the GFCI anyway, and it'll be worse.
As for me I told the customer that 99% of the EC's will replace the GFCI without a second thought, but as much as I hate it, I won't do it.
He'll probably just replace it himself and most likely wire it wrong, but hey, it's all good, big brother takes care of us right?
Click to expand...

I have no problem with having GFCI protection on freezers or refrigerators in garages or unfinished basements. Only real "nuisance tripping" I have ever ran into is one that tripped during a thunderstorm - some type of alarm would be good for this, otherwise everyone that I have had service calls for a refrigerator tripping a GFCI always ended up being the GFCI doing what it was supposed to do. The problem was within the refrigerator. I've even proven a few appliance repair guys wrong that told them they needed an electrician to check out the GFCI. Have several times had customer wanting to remove the GFCI and put in regular receptacle (even back when it was code compliant to do so in certain cases) and always ended up proving the appliance had a problem and that GFCI was doing what it was supposed to do. First time I did remove GFCI's I got called back - the freezer is now shocking me:slaphead: Ever since that incident I always check out the freezer and it almost always has a problem.

hurk27 said:
I don't have a freezer but I do have three things I use a sensaphone 1104 on, and it still has two more in puts if I ever do decide to get a freezer, I use these on stand alone lift stations and use the power failure, a float switch for my sump as it is critical if it fails my basement will flood, and a thermostat sensor for temperature alarm if my inverter back up on my furnace doesn't kick in, or if the battery fails, these things are great for home or business monitoring I even have a small motion detector wired to it, and it will call my cell then my wifes, then my sisters.

You have 4 inputs that can be figured NO or NC loop, and two built in alarms one is the mic which can trigger the unit on any sound or setting the sensitivity low can limit it to listen for other alarms, , the other is power failure and if put on its own breaker will let you know if you lost utility or putting it on a critical circuit will monitor both that circuit and or utility.

There are many sensors that give you options as to what you want to monitor and dial out for, and allot of flexibility from as simple as using dry contacts or variable resistance inputs for temp alarms, and its totally programmable, I was also thinking about getting an annunciator type smoke alarm with dry output contacts to monitor for fire when away from the house.

The 1100 series is dated and out of production but there are much surplus still out there and can be had for cheap, I grabbed 6 of them just yard sailing, and see them all the time on e-bay or other supply places on the net, I paid 10 bucks a piece for the ones I picked up at a yard sale, but newer models are pricey but if you have a call for a dialer with many options just go to www.sensaphone.com and get a model that fits your need, the 1104 is a 4 channel while the 1108 is a 8 channel.
Click to expand...

I have installed a few sensaphone units, very handy unit. One is for a small industrial plant - primary reason is to monitor their boiler after hours. It went down on (very) cold night one winter and one part of plant heated by steam had frozen pipes and other damages because of that. Another one is at a sewer lift station. Existing equipment had alarm that turned on an outside light when the level was too high - doesn't do a lot of good to turn on a light that no one is going to see until it has backed up into all the nearby houses and then they call in the problem. City maintenance guy sees the light when he comes to see what happened after it is too late. I have seen many of them in livestock buildings - if ventilation fails temperature can rise pretty quickly and it doesn't take long to have a building full of dead animals.

To add to what you have already said - it will call 4 or 8 numbers depending on which model you have, but it is looking for a response from the number called to acknowledge the alarm, if it does not get acknowledgement it keeps dialing next number on the list and rotates back to the first number if last one did not acknowledge. It does stop dialing after 100 dialing attempts have been made - could be a bit of a problem in some cases but most of the time it hopefully is successful at contacting needed help when it is called upon for duty.
 
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