Fridge Power Outlet Next To Water Valve - Gfci Or Not ?

Today I was fixing the water valve to the washing machine, and to get access to the water line, I had to disassemble an outlet. To my shock (no pun intended), I discovered that some moron bootlegged the outlet by connecting neutral and ground together.



Now I'm concerned that I may have this elsewhere in the house. What is the best way to test for this? Obviously I will see 120 V from hot to ground in any case, so that doesn't work. Continuity between neutral and ground is normal, because they are connected at the main panel; I measured the resistance between neutral and ground at an outlet close to the main panel, and it was virtually zero. But that doesn't meat it's bootlegged.



I don't really want to take each outlet apart. And even if I do that, how would I know that the moron didn't connect ground to neutral somewhere inside a wall?



Thanks,
      

I am new to the forum so kindly bear with me.  I live in Mesa, AZ and have just had a PEX repipe done to bypass my copper hot water lines.  (God don't ask!  A real problem here with slab foundations.  I already had my kitchen jack hammered once.  It is NOT pretty!).

It seems really odd to me that just because it is a dedicated circuit  that code would not require that circuit to be GFCI protected.

I have a dedicated 20 amp duplex 12 AWG wire outlet under the sink and it is within a few inches of the water lines.  The outlet serves a switch for the garbage disposal and serves my dishwasher which is always hot. 

  Now that I have all my maple cabinets pulled out I thought I might change the outlet to a GFCI just to be safe.  I have a ground wire, a red wire, a black wire and a white wire.  As it is dedicated I think I should use the LINE sided instead of the LOAD side but I am not sure where the wires should go.

Could someone give me info on this?  It would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.
      

We just got a used hot tub.  It ran fine where we purchased it but since we got it home, it has not run.  We installed a new breaker for the hot tub and an GFCI outlet outside.  The hot tub inself has a GFCI installed on it.  If we plug it into the GFCI outlet it runs for a few seconds and either trips the circuit inside or the hot tub.  Is it necessary to have a GFCI outlet outisde if the hot tub has one?  We are thinking that this may be our problem..redundancy.  Can we install a regular outlet outside instead of the GFCI outlet?  When we plug it into a regular outlet it runs.  We want to make sure that this is safe before proceeding.
      

I have this cirucit with a GFCI outlet, then two regular outlets off the load.  None of them work.  The GFCI reset button was out, push it in, it pops back out. 



I replaced the GFCI with a new one and it seems to be fine.  (GFCI outlet and load outlets are working).



Is this common?  (I mean that a GFCI would go bad, and display this for behavior?)



Thank you, and if this is a stupid question, you may electronically "dope slap" me!
      

I have no power on the wiring on a GFCI outlet.  I tested the breaker and it has power.  I also tested all other GFCI outlets and they are working.  What could be my problem?
      

Hi all,



I have read a few posts here about others having problems with receiving a shock while touching the faucet or water from the faucet in certain rooms. Today I experienced this problem in my kitchen. I was able to narrow the problem down to one breaker on my box, specifically one set of outlets. My question is can a faulty outlet cause this to happen?



I currently have the breaker in question flipped off until I can replace the outlet and see if that fixes the problem. There haven't been any changes to the electrical or plumbing in quite a while. This happened completely out of the blue.



Any advise that you might have would be greatly appreciated.



Jess
      

Hello,

We're installing a steam shower unit & need to run new electrical wiring.  We have a few questions & hope someone can help!



We have three power cords (water pump, heat pump, steam generator) & none of them currently have plugs.  The specs are as follows:  3000W steam generator 110v - 30 amp GFCI breaker, 12 v lighting, 1.2 hp water pump 110 v - 30 amp GFCI breaker, & a 1500W heat pump 110v 12.5 amps.  It says you can run the heat pump off the same circuit as the rest of the unit.



Ok, so.. we're wondering what the easiest & cheapest way of going about this is.  We want it to be SAFE first & foremost, but also want to keep expense at a minimum.



Thank you for any advice you have!




      

A word of thanks and a followup on my question.

I had to try three GFCI recepticles before I got one that wouldn't trip!

More then likely these two that would trip must have been more sensitive and may work in a different circuit.

Interestingly, changing the outlet was the first thing I did. Didn't think two would do the same thing.

Another experience I can add to my notebook.
      

if a 110v receptacle is located near a water faucet on the inside of a building, does it need to be GFCI protected? no sink involved.
      

Hello.



I recently purchased a home that has a a new grounded breaker panel but none of the outlets themselves are grounded save the hvac system in the basement. I had an electrician come and he said the fastest way to get it done is to switch the appropriate breakers to GFCI breakers in my service box and then I can change the outlets and then just put the stickers that say ungrounded etc on the new 3 prong receptacles. he called the inspector to double check and the inspector told him that he can't do it this way but he needs to find the first outlet in the loop from each breaker line and change that receptacle to a gfci and then we can change each receptacle to 3 prong in that loop.



Wouldn't just changing the breaker do the same thing? also if I did just install a Gfci receptacle on the first outlet in the loop, if it breaks wouldn't the rest of the outlets behind that gfci not function until I replaced the Gfci outlet where as a breaker would just pop and I can simply go turn it back on?



Just wanted to get some opinion from the experts as I'm willing to spend more on doing gfci breakers and am confused as to why the inspector suggested the way he did



Thanks for any help!