NICK Gromicko saved me

I was on a job the other day. I texted Nick and he helped me solve my issue within 2 minutes!!! What an illustrious wealth of knowledge. THANKS!!!
@gromicko

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And the issue was…

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I had tripped a non GFCI receptacle in the bathroom and couldnt get it to reset. No tripped breakers at the main service panel either

So, it was tied in down stream from another GFCI receptacle? Yes/No?

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And this is why you never test a receptical with a 3-light tester to see if it is GFCI protected! Always test at the device with the built in test buttons and then go back and check the various receptacles to see if they have power or not. This way you always know where the reset is located! :blush:

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Sometimes. Had one house that had a half bath on the main level with a GFCI receptacle and it tripped when the button and prong were tested. Once tripped, what other receptacles do I follow up with after that? :thinking: Full bath upstairs, above the half, had a GFCI receptacle, tripped the button and it wouldn’t reset. Checked all the breakers and no go. Worked my way back to the half bath downstairs, and sure enough, the upstairs bath tripped the downstairs bath. Once reset, both worked fine. 20 minutes of wasted time and the info was passed on to the clients.

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I test as I go. Todays inspection I tripped the front exterior receptacle, house was built in 1995 so chances are the re-set was in a bathroom, sure enough it was in the powder room, and the other 2 exterior receptacles were all downstream as well.
The other 3 bathrooms each all had there own GFCI devises.

Agfter you’ve been doing it for a while you learn where to go to look for the devise to reset depending on the age of the house, although that is not always the case, it usually is.

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Where did you find the reset? Most times it’s in another bathroom, but could be almost anywhere in an older home that had GFCIs’ added later.

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I told him exactly where it was going to be hidden. He went right there and there it was. I got lucky, but acted cocky :wink:

Back when you only where required to have one GFCI in the bathroom and one in the garage, GFCI receptacles were still expensive, so the electricians would run the bath receptacles off of the GFCI in the garage.

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My advice. When you trip one with your tester that is being controlled elsewhere, don’t freak out. Just move along with your inspection, making a note that you should be on the lookout for a GFCI that is already tripped. When you find one, reset it and go back to the other to see if it is now back up and energized.

If you haven’t found the controlling GFCI by the end of the inspection, make a pass through and check all of the GFCIs’ you encountered earlier to see if they are tripped. If you find one, reset it and go back and check the other one.

If you fail to find any tripped GFCIs’ and the house is occupied, the next thing to do is check if all refrigerators and freezers are working. If they are, you can decide to stop at that point and notify the listing agent that a reset could not be found for the receptacle in question (also put it in your report).

But if you’re like me, you won’t stop looking, lol. Then you need to go look behind everything that might be covering up the reset. Focus especially on the basement and the garage.

Worst case is that the fridge/freezer are off and you can’t find the reset or get ahold of the listing agent. That’s when it’s time to break out the extension cords you bring with you to every inspection for just this scenario.

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Today, both baths had GFCIs and both were tripped when I arrived. The seller didn’t use the outlets and was unaware. It was a small townhome built before GFCIs were required, but I never found a controlling GFCI. Wrote it up and moved on.

Gotta say that it is pretty cool that the head guy at InterNACHI answers the call for a small problem for an inspector.

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When it comes to instant help, Nick is hard to beat!

G

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Do you really do that? I guess I’ll be keeping those cords in my truck. Good idea :slight_smile:

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Absolutely. I haven’t had to use them yet. But I was close one time. I keep two 20’ cords in my truck. I need at least one of them anyway because my mold air pump is AC powered.

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Don’t forget the Exterior!!

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I tripped an exterior GFCI once and later found out it was connected to a GFCI under the hydro tub.

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Why do so many still insist on tripping the GFCI at non-GFCI receptacles instead of using the 2 built-in buttons on the GFCI device? Yes, it does require a little more effort(maybe 10 minutes to an inspection) but if you do it this way you will stop the searching for the GFCI receptacle with the reset buttons and you will then testing the GFCI devices properly. The only approved method to test a GFCI receptacles from the manufacturers is to use the built-in test buttons on the device. The 3-light testers are just a convenience item for us.

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I can’t speak for others, but I do it because I think it’s faster, more efficient, and more acurate, to trip the GFCI protected receptacle and go find the re-set location than trip at the re-set location and look for de-energized receptacles, then have to check them again to make sure they are re-energized.

I just inspected a home last week that had a switched front exterior receptacle, so unless the switch was turned “on” there was no way to 1. test the receptacle. 2. test the GFCI function.

I also include where the re-set location for all GFCI protected receptacles are in my report, this is in case my client may need that information anytime in the future.

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Yes, it does take more effort to do it the proper way. But, if you do test them at the GFCI device then you will not be searching for the resets! It’s all about what you become used to doing and it’s not easy to change but just try it and see how it works. It has taken me almost 6-months to get my inspectors to stop using their 3-light testes on non-GFCI receptacles, they hated the change but now it is just the norm. Sure, I’m sure some still use their little testers but that is against our company policy and training.

What we do is to trip all know GFCI’s in the area first and then go and test the bathrooms, exterior, kitchen, garage, etc. All should be dead. Then we power back up with the reset and check for power, grounding, etc. Grated it takes a few more minutes but doing a proper inspection is not a race in time, we are done when we are done.

In a DIY remodeled kitchen, I heard the GFCI trip but could not find it anywhere. Later the seller called me to say that the controlling GFCI was behind the dishwasher and he was annoyed with me for making him pull the dishwasher to reset it. He was surprised when I told him that was a hard “NO” on doing that and thank goodness I found a major stupid defect for my client who was not him.

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