T-shoot Gfci Breaker

hurricaneflyer

To eliminate mixed neutrals as the reason a gfci breaker would not set I thought I could turn off all other breakers in the panel. If the problem was mixed neutrals this would allow the gfci breaker to set.

My co-worker says this will not do anything to eliminate mixed neutrals as the problem

I have been searching but have not found the source of info for this t-shooting trick
I may have seen this on one of the forums but havent found the post.
I'd sttill like info for future reference a link to somthing i could print out would be great even if I am wrong I will show it to my co-worker so he will know I admit when I am wrong.
.

This particular instance we found a ground to neutral short in a receptacl outlet

macmikeman

That is a good tip. And it should work equally well for the same problem with mixed up neutrals on afci protected circuits.

hurricaneflyer

macmikeman,

Thanks for the reply. Are you confirming this idea as correct or saying its a good idea IF its correct?
I am looking for confirmation that it is indeed accurate.

The three jurisdictions I mostly work in are not inforcing aNy AFCI protected circuits yet. Thats fine by me except I am falling behind learning to troubleshoot them when the time does come

RobertWilber

Absolutely eliminates problem of mixed neutrals
There will be only ONE hot, so there is no mixed neutral for GFI to contend with. Obviously, however, this will only work for tests. [only SEEMS to eliminate mixed neutral problem]

hurricaneflyer

Thanks guys,

Sparky Joe

Not sure if I'm understanding the question; you have a gfi breaker and forgot which romex it is? or the gfi receptacle won't reset because it's part of a multiwire cable?

either way a gfi needs power for the reset button to work

and if the bare ground is touching the neutral it will trip the gfi every time a load is put to it, multiple current paths and all

"t-shooting" trick, that's anew one for me, can someone explain what that means? Or even perhaps what this poor guys problem is?

hurricaneflyer

Joe,

We went on a service call. "a breaker will not set" was the reason given.

When we got there we discovered it was a gfci breaker that would not set. The breaker was labled as "outside receptacles, porch lights, underneath"
This was a huge two story house. We found 12 receptacles and two sets of lights not working . There was only the one breaker that would not set.

This was a rental house. I called to see if we could get any more info. Had thier maintenance people been out there changing out any receptacles or switches? Had any other trades been there working?

There was no answer to those questions so we were at square one.

My co-worker and I agreed to try to narrow down the possible causes before we started pulling devices and lights out for inspection.
We bypassed the gfci portion of the breaker and found the breaker would then set and everything worked. That eliminated a hard short as the problem. We hooked the gfci breaker back up properly.

I then started flipping off all the other breakers, thats when my co-worker asked me what I was doing that for. Our disscusion and disagreement started at that point and thats what prompted my post here.

t-shooting trick, method to help discover or eliminate a cause of a problem. Sorry for being too lazy at the time to type out trouble-shooting.

Sparky Joe

Why not just do a continuity test between the ground and neutral from the panel when you had it all taken apart?

And for that matter check continuity between hot and neutral and ground rather than the 'hook it up and see if it explodes' method

hurricaneflyer

Of course you are right Joe. My co-workers and I cant seem to stop playing the "I can name that tune in 3 notes" game, except we do it with troubleshooting. I know we should grow up, but I ain't holding my breath.

mdshunk

No, that 'hook it up and see if it explodes method' is accomplished by slapping the circuit conductor on the buss bar.

I had a co-worker once upon a time who found faults with such a test. Hold it on the buss bar and look for where the smoke is. Wacky dude...

Sparky Joe

[QUOTE=mdshunk;154705]No, that 'hook it up and see if it explodes method' is accomplished by slapping the circuit conductor on the buss bar. QUOTE]

Now that's even nuttier than you. "Birds of a feather" right.

We did something similar once; The sheetrockers had their Mexican music blaring while we needed to communicate during a wire pull. After asking them and turning it down for them several times, we finally went to the electrical room knowing what circuit their radio was plugged into, we pulled the neutral and slapped it against the bus of a different phase. It was real funny when we did it, but funnier watching them try to figure it out.