GFCI Breaker tripping

[Little Bill]

In this instance you have to add code history and the age of the house into your trouble shooing mental reference.

There was a time, starting in late seventies on up into the nineties, where GFCI protection was required or expanded into all the areas you mentioned but having a separate circuit to the bathroom was not.

I understand all that, this was just a recent example I ran into.
My question was in general, not just GFCI. Maybe a circuit that ran from the living room to a bedroom and back to the kitchen.
If you didn't know where the circuit started and what all areas it ran to, how would you know the mid point to start troubleshooting?

 

[jumper]

If you didn't know where the circuit started and what all areas it ran to, how would you know the mid point to start troubleshooting?

Simple, you don't. Love those fun ones. Had an outside post light tied to a bath GFCI once, took awhile to find that one.

 

[Little Bill]

Simple, you don't. Love those fun ones. Had an outside post light tied to a bath GFCI once, took awhile to find that one.

I didn't think about a house I went to last week that had no power in 3 rooms. They had a fuse panel. I found a blown fuse and dreaded starting to troubleshoot this since there was 3 rooms and I had no idea where the circuit started and ended. Got lucky and found a pole lamp that had a bad/burnt socket. Told them to throw the pole lamp in garbage.

After I got paid of course!:thumbsup:

 

[kwired]

The culprit was finally found in a factory supplied cord and plug connection to a fluorescent light fixture that was plugged in. I looked at everything field installed and found no issues and still had me stumped. Homeowner finally said he had plugged lights in and never thought it would be the issue. Wire connector had nicked the neutral wire and allowed grounding to the fixture itself. Why is it always the little thigns that trip us every time. Thanks for all the advice.

GFCI is all about "the little things".

I understand all that, this was just a recent example I ran into.
My question was in general, not just GFCI. Maybe a circuit that ran from the living room to a bedroom and back to the kitchen.
If you didn't know where the circuit started and what all areas it ran to, how would you know the mid point to start troubleshooting?

If you don't know what all areas it runs to you don't really know the end either - hopefully you do know the beginning but have run into cases where that can be confusing also, like when two separate circuits get connected together in a junction box someplace.

 

[jap]

The first step that should have been mentioned in this troubleshoot should have been, make sure nothing is plugged into the receptacles so you could isolate the problem between structure wiring and equipment wiring.

we already knew the problem was going to be on the Load Side GFI's somewhere.

The wiring upstream of the Subpanel had no relevance in this issue.