Why don't water heaters require GFCI protection

The question boils down to:
whats an acceptable level of leakage current flowing on the equipment ground of a hard wired appliance?
If a water heater has a 30A inverse time breaker it will probably let 30 amps flow on the equipment ground indefinitely.
If you touch the metal frame while 30A is flowing on it and the EGC is intact will you feel anything? Will you be shocked?
 
tortuga said:
The question boils down to:
whats an acceptable level of leakage current flowing on the equipment ground of a hard wired appliance?
If a water heater has a 30A inverse time breaker it will probably let 30 amps flow on the equipment ground indefinitely.
If you touch the metal frame while 30A is flowing on it and the EGC is intact will you feel anything? Will you be shocked?
Click to expand...
Are you barefooted on a wet concrete floor?

Do you feel anything when you touch a meter can that has 30 amps flowing on the neutral? Do you feel anything when you touch a neutral bar that has 30 amps?
 
tortuga said:
The question boils down to:
whats an acceptable level of leakage current flowing on the equipment ground of a hard wired appliance?
If a water heater has a 30A inverse time breaker it will probably let 30 amps flow on the equipment ground indefinitely.
If you touch the metal frame while 30A is flowing on it and the EGC is intact will you feel anything? Will you be shocked?
Click to expand...
I think the issue would be high mineral content of the water in the water heater, with non metallic plumbing, the water would effectively become “hot” electrically.
 
ptonsparky said:
Are you barefooted on a wet concrete floor?

Do you feel anything when you touch a meter can that has 30 amps flowing on the neutral? Do you feel anything when you touch a neutral bar that has 30 amps?
Click to expand...
Never noticed anything.
Add to that list all the ranges and dryers with neutral current on the frame.
I suspect most of the GFCI requirements for fixed (hard wired) equipment may be overblown.
 
tortuga said:
The frame is metal, so yeah there might be a little voltage on the frame if a heavy fault current is flowing, but I really
I have not read any peer reviewed research that shows the need to have 5mA ground fault protection for any fixed appliances hardwired to a EGC unless its a pool or other special situation. I could see lowering the threshold perhaps even to 30mA but 5mA seems excessive.
Click to expand...

IMHO for hard wired appliances such as water heaters or the like something like an electromechanical RCD would make far more sense than the electronic residual current detection used in GFCIs or GFPEs.

Why have more delicate electronics sitting there consuming power when the residual current sense coil can trip a breaker when perhaps 100mA of leakage current flows. And when you have a reliable hard wired EGC, you don't need a more sensitive ground fault detection.
 
tortuga said:
Never noticed anything.
Add to that list all the ranges and dryers with neutral current on the frame.
I suspect most of the GFCI requirements for fixed (hard wired) equipment may be overblown.
Click to expand...
Supposedly this all got started from a hvac compressor that was wired wrong and killed a technician.
I went behind another electrician that wired a hot tub wrong, luckily it didn’t heat up, and the owner wanted me to take a look at it. The installer did not have it on a gfi breaker, landed one of the hots to the ground lug, and the ground to one of the power terminals.
 
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