GFI Breakers randomly tripping.

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markebenson

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I recently installed these GfI breakers. They have tripped at night when the circuits are not being used more than once. Any advice other than checking the ground that runs to this sub panel and perhaps installing a rod here? Thx
 

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I have seen low voltage track heads trip GFCI receptacles. Cured it by putting them on opposite phase of the track heads. Crazy, but somehow the receptacles didn't like the tracks being on the phase.

I had a rented sump pump trip a GFCI breaker at my house. It was a GE brand, so I didn't give it any more thoughts.

I once saw some kind of lab equipment trip a GFCI breaker at a school. QO brand. I think the school got another unit, as it tripped any GFCI it was loaded onto.
 
What is strange they are tripping overnight with nothing plugged in. Here is 2 of the 4 quads they go to. There is 4 gfi breakers and each one has tripped more than once overnight. They have never tripped with a load on them.
 

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Can you temporarily disconnect the receptacles fed by one or two of the GFCIs, cap off the wires with wirenuts, and then see if the tripping stops on those particular GFCIs? Try it with just the hot wire disconnected, and if it still trips then also disconnect the neutral wire. If disconnecting the receptacles stops the tripping, then it's likely the receptacles themselves have too much leakage to ground. If it still trips with the receptacles disconnected, remove the hot lead from the GFCI breaker output and see if it trips. If it still trips, disconnect the neutral wire from the load side of the breaker and check whether the breaker trips without any wires connected to it.
By doing this, you might be able to narrow down the problem to a specific area.
 
What were the weather conditions? Condensation can be an issue and may be gone before you get there to troubleshoot. WR receptacle may help.
What is the distance from breaker to receptacles? WR GFCI device may be a better choice.
A Midwest product, or similar, may also be a better option for outdoor enclosures containing CBs and/or devices.
Inductive kick back from lighting control?
 
synchro said:
Can you temporarily disconnect the receptacles fed by one or two of the GFCIs, cap off the wires with wirenuts, and then see if the tripping stops on those particular GFCIs? Try it with just the hot wire disconnected, and if it still trips then also disconnect the neutral wire. If disconnecting the receptacles stops the tripping, then it's likely the receptacles themselves have too much leakage to ground. If it still trips with the receptacles disconnected, remove the hot lead from the GFCI breaker output and see if it trips. If it still trips, disconnect the neutral wire from the load side of the breaker and check whether the breaker trips without any wires connected to it.
By doing this, you might be able to narrow down the problem to a specific area.
Click to expand...
I fail to see how receptacles could have leakage to ground with nothing plugged in. Can you explain that?
 
Little Bill said:
I fail to see how receptacles could have leakage to ground with nothing plugged in. Can you explain that?
Click to expand...

Last month the OP mentioned that he's had problems with GFCI receptacles near the beach in Florida. Salt air might possibly cause deposits that have enough leakage to ground to trip a GFCI. I had this in mind when I made the post about checking the receptacles. However, the OP has not mentioned what the environment is in the present situation.

Without such a marine environment the chance of enough receptacle leakage to trip a GFCI would be extremely low. Carbon deposits or tracking could cause it. But it would probably require something like a fire for multiple receptacle circuits to be tripping from carbon deposits.
 
Check for any possible neutral/ground short. Is the building subject to vibration? Maybe a slight skinned place on a ground, hitting a neutral terminal or a skinned neutral hitting the box or ground terminal? It can be a hairline crack that opens up when wire is pushed into the box. I've seen several variations of this.
 
jmellc said:
Check for any possible neutral/ground short. Is the building subject to vibration? Maybe a slight skinned place on a ground, hitting a neutral terminal or a skinned neutral hitting the box or ground terminal? It can be a hairline crack that opens up when wire is pushed into the box. I've seen several variations of this.
Click to expand...

I think that would be very unlikely that would affect all four breakers. I agree, start with unwiring the receptacles.

-Hal
 
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