For those who have/have had trouble with GFCI breakers......

[chrisexv6]

Today I came home to find out that my GFCI breaker tripped sometime between last night and this morning. We had a rain storm, but nothing near like we've already had, so my thought is its not moisture.

Anytime I plug my pump into the GFCI circuit, the breaker instantly trips. If I leave a receptacle on the circuit, even without anything plugged into it, the breaker *eventually* trips (minutes, hours later, etc.) Currently have bare wires (covered of course) outside with the breaker on waiting to see if the breaker trips all by itself.

Any ideas? I know a couple people recently had issues liek this, would be interested to see what fixed it....and also anyone that may have had something liek this happen (this actually happened to me 2 seasons ago, I thought it was fixed because it worked fine all last year and so far 2 months this year).

Thanks in advance.

-Chris

[JohnT]

GFCI Breakers can and do go bad, but more than half the time it is moisture somewhere. It doesn't take more than a heavy fog to cause problems.

[diwilson]

We had this problem with a GFI in the house. Changed out the switch and it continued. For weeks we searched for the problem. Drove me crazy. It was a new home and I was ready to call the builder. Finally I discovered the motorhome plugged into an extension cord which had fallen from it's hook and sunk into a puddle of water. Lucky my mom taught me to stay clear of mud puddles! Good luck.

[CarlD]

The message is, at the moment, NOT that the GFCI is bad, but rather that it's doing it's job and there is a "leak" somewhere of electricity, which is VERY dangerous. Unless you can PROVE the GFCI is bad, assume it's good and finding a problem.

[chrisexv6]

The GFCI *breaker* (not an outlet) only goes to the pool (about 100' directly from panel to equipment pad). Whats odd is that I havent dug, drilled, etc. anywhere near it. I agree that its probably a leak somewhere, but the 2 ends of the wire that I can see are fine (circuit panel end and equipment pad end).

To throw another wrench into the works, I re-installed the receptacle (the same one that tripped the breaker last night) and now not only does it not trip the breaker, I was able to plug the pump into it and the pump is running fine off the outlet.

Unfortunately Im not 100% sure this cures anything. Considering I thought this issue was fixed last year, short of re-running the whole circuit, how is there any way to be sure? Im hoping I just need to replace/re-wire an outlet every year or two, but that doesnt make sense (why didnt the pump run when connected directly to the wires feeding the outlet that now mysteriously works?)

-Chris

[matt4x4]

I also had a GFCI go bad after about a year of use, replaced it with a more expensive model, 2 years later, still going strong.

[adl6009]

I had a gfi socket do that to me. I had my low volt landscape lights plugged into it and every couple of nights, sometimes 2 weeks would go by, and the gfi would be tripped. I could never identify a cause. So I changed out the gfi socket and it hasn't happened since. (About a year now) They do go bad, I guess mine was tripping for no good reason.