Dear mikeholt.com admin, Excellent work!

Without a doubt, such complaints are more common than ever before. Simply put, the level of integrity has diminished and the evidence of Quality Control has degraded to a Midnight Shift's "nap"! Likewise standards are becoming a plague, all through out the United States. A few examples, for a start, is a case of counterfeit Sq D QO breakers that were being distributed by a major electrical distributor of Pennsylvania. Although the distributor was not aware of the illegal product, it however easily found it's way on and about our merchant base. Replacement breakers without UL approval? How is it that the FPA and such critically influencial groups, do nothing... to put a stop to such risks? Yes.. Risks! Backwired devices? Still? ..even today? Any mechanically inclined person... would conclude that such a connection, does not provide a solid means of termination. Nor would an electrician who values the integrity and peace of mind of a sound installation. Think.... Backstabs are found on a 15A device. 15A devices are mostly installed in... of all places... dwellings! ..where people sleep!!! Banning backstabs is decades over due. I say to all those who are partakers in the infuence and direction of electrical safety standards and design in the United States. The allowing of sub-grade materials and design is simply a risk of anothers life. Cheap products are just another contributing factor to the risk of life and contributes to rising insurance rates. By the way, for those who are not aware... never assign more than one GFCI device per line. Whether breaker, or in-line device... only one. Two or more will conflict.

I found the discussion in this forum very interesting. I am a master electrician and an electrical plans examiner for a large city in the State of Texas. Some months back, I was using a blow dryer in my bathroom and accidentally dropped it in the toilet. The dryer continued to run and the gfci never tripped. Kind of embarrassing when there are 2 master electricians in the house

The failures you speak of are also the same as outside faucets, made cheap in China. Remember you only get what you pay for.

[quote] Most of us use a similar device most of the time. The electrical contractor has always used a 60W incandescent bulb in a drop socket to test receptacles, and tests GFCI operation by attaching it to the hot outlet and ground. The rest of us will test the same way if our receptacle tester is not readily at hand.[quote]

I can't imagine one would purposely fault a circuit to test a GFCI The GFCI can be effectively be tested creating continuity between the grounded conductor and The Grounding conductor it's also much safer than creating an arch flash that can burn the electrician or someone’s property

IMHO

Thanks for making notes and bringing this to light I’ve certainly have been scratching my head a bit more lately with these Things (GFCIs) myself.

the GFCI can be effectivly be tested creating continuity between the grounded conductor and Ground it's also much saferr than creating a arch flash that can burn the electrician or someones property

Without a doubt, such complaints are more common than ever before. Simply put, the level of integrity has diminished and the evidence of Quality Control has degraded to a Midnight Shift's "nap"! Likewise standards are becoming a plague, all through out the United States. A few examples, for a start, is a case of counterfeit Sq D QO breakers that were being distributed by a major electrical distributor of Pennsylvania. Although the distributor was not aware of the illegal product, it however easily found it's way on and about our merchant base. Replacement breakers without UL approval? How is it that the FPA and such critically influencial groups, do nothing... to put a stop to such risks? Yes.. Risks! Backwired devices? Still? ..even today? Any mechanically inclined person... would conclude that such a connection, does not provide a solid means of termination. Nor would an electrician who values the integrity and peace of mind of a sound installation. Think.... Backstabs are found on a 15A device. 15A devices are mostly installed in... of all places... dwellings! ..where people sleep!!! Banning backstabs is decades over due. I say to all those who are partakers in the infuence and direction of electrical safety standards and design in the United States. The allowing of sub-grade materials and design is simply a risk of anothers life. Cheap products are just another contributing factor to the risk of life and contributes to rising insurance rates. By the way, for those who are not aware... never assign more than one GFCI device per line. Whether breaker, or in-line device... only one. Two or more will conflict.

I installed a GFCI receptacle this past weekend that tested bad. It would not reset. It acted like it had no power. When I removed it from the device box, it worked fine! Reset, tested, reset again. Put it back in, failed. The greenee in the box was placing undue torgue on the outlet causing it to fail. Had to be replaced, but this time I made sure there was no torgue on the device after installation. I have seen the same kind of fault with switch devices in the past. It could be that your installers are not being gentle enough during installation.

GOOD MORNING; I HAVE FOUND THAT IF YOU INSTALL MULTIPLE GFCI OUTLETS INTO THE SAME CIRCUIT THAT AT TIMES THEY TALK TO EACH OTHER AND TRIP OUT UNEXPECTANTLY. THIS COULD BE CAUSED BY IMPEDIENCE OR I CALL IT CROSS TALK AND I HAVE LEARNED TO JUST NEVER TO PUT MORE THAN (1) GFCI PROTECTION DEVICE (BREAKER OR OUTLET), INTO THE SAME CIRCUIT. IN OTHER WORDS " INSTALL THE PRIMARY GFCI (BREAKER OR OUTLET AND CONNECT ALL OTHER OUTLETS NEEDING GFCI PROTECTION ON THE SAME CIRCUIT ONLY ONTO THE LOAD SIDE OF PRIMARY GFCI". BESIDES BEING CHEAPER AT INSTALLATION TIME, THIS WILL ELIMINATE THE CROSSTALK PROBLEM. THANK YOU !!! PAYME.COM

I do not work in the electrical installation field, but use a fair number of GFCI outlets in various applications. I "see" a similar failure rate. I also fear the same for AFCIs. I agree with the airbag/automobile analogy.

When I talk to lay-persons and the topic of GFCIs come up, either the person does not know what I am speaking of, or I get a comment similar to "oh, those things that dont work right."

The idea is a good one (GFCI/AFCI), but lack of education and defective devices is going to give the industry a "black eye", IMHO.

I'm just wondering how 90 yrs of experience could miswire so many GFCI receptacles?

I seem to have touched a raw nerve with this article.

Several interesting points have been made. For some reason, I am unable to view the comments and replies on the website. Mike very kindly set me up to receive them by e-mail, but most of the short replies cannot be related to a comment by content alone.

I will respond to one question that has been asked more than once. We use Leviton almost exclusively. In the extreme example of the church, we used Leviton 20A GFCI receptacles. At the start, they were all SmartLok, but toward the end, the replacements were all SmarkLok Pro. We rarely buy anything from the "big box" stores or through discount outlets.

I had not considered that the devices might be counterfeit. We usually return them to our supplier, but I don't know if they ship them to the manufacturer or just dump them and apply for credit. That's an interesting question to ask the boys at the counter the next time I'm there.

I had not really thought about high failure rates due to offshore manufacturing or early in a new design cycle. Both are quite plausible, and I do have some experience with both, from a former life. "Shrinking the die" is also plausible as a cause, although I was under the impression that it would not apply to GFCI receptacles. Perhaps the newer designs need specifically designed components, rather than off the shelf stuff. In that case, yes, the chip manufacturer will look for ways to increase yield.

I was interested in the assertion that nothing you do on the load side of a GFCI should affect its operation. I did not see any responses to that (that I could recognize as such). I will certainly agree that is a desirable design point. But is it in fact a required design point? I understand that GFCI receptacles are not intended to act as overload interruptors, and it is also my understanding (and experience) that an overload can fry one. I think I remember that the Task Force report mentioned the delicacy of the components and their susceptibility to surges--that, too, agrees with my experience. Therefore, I have doubts about the assertion (that load side actions have no effect). Applying a 60W incandescent load between hot and ground is not a normal occurrence. I am not convinced that this method of testing has caused a lot of failures, but neither am I yet convinced that it cannot.

I was under the impression that shorting the neutral to ground would trip the GFCI only if there was a load. I don't have an AFCI tester, so I apply a load before shorting neutral to ground. I thought that's what I would have to do for GFCI, as well.

As a side note, I am not just testing the operation of the GFCI (or AFCI). When I test, I go through the same motions that our inspectors will go through--assuring that every receptacle is in fact protected, and not "bootlegged" off of the nearest power source. During peak periods, we often have more work than the four of us can handle, so we'll subcontract or we'll hire temporary help. These people are always fully licensed, and should not need close supervision, but we have almost always found miswirings and (rarely) outright bootleg work. Even among ourselves, misunderstandings of what has already been done or what was intended have resulted in accidental miswirings when we help each other get caught up on a job. On a few occasions, the carpenters will have to change out a stud or make other changes that affect wiring, and will "help" us by doing it themselves. And of course, there are always boxes covered by the drywallers and forgotten. For all these reasons, I am in the habit of thorough testing. I hate it when the inspector finds something I should have caught.

I am also interested in the one comment about proper torque to the side screws. I don't much like the way GFCI receptacles force me to connect the wires. I'd really rather have plain old side screws. Many times I have had to chase down a failure that was nothing more than a wire slipped out of the clamps. Therefore, after running the screws down, I apply an extra twist to make sure it is tight. Can overtorquing damage a GFCI receptacle?

On using GFCI breakers instead of receptacles: My understanding and experience with GFCI is that nuisance tripping increases with distance between the GFCI and the load, due to brief current imbalances induced by stray noise. I think this has been more of a problem in commercial settings, with their higher population of electronics and the longer home runs to the panels.

Nuisance tripping due to electronic loads on the GFCI protected system itself is another can of worms that I don't want to get into right now.

In summary, while the comments (and the volume) have been interesting, I have not yet seen anything that says that we are or are not doing anything ourselves to cause the failures. However, the trend seems to say that we are not; that the failures are common.

Scott A. Hightower

I've had failures at about 5%,I just think it's mass production and dumb luck,,,,,although I have noticed more failures when multible(2-3) recepticals are used with only one failure with single use,,I have not had one just not work,only not being able to reset after tripped

I am a Master Electrician and suprised that no one has thought about torque levels of the terminals. During the last few years we have had excessive GFCI Failures. We only use P&S Legrand products and not the cheap version either we use the pn 1594wg of the failures which were well over %20 percent, (although how much I don't know) we drastically reduced our failure rate when we started using torque limiting devices to tighten the terminals. AFCI's are a crock of ****. We have had hundreds fail mostly when these devices were placed beside other AFCI devices and reached tempratures above 80 degrees celcius (measured with IR GUN on site) while there was no load connected. Our solution to that, put one space between each device and pray. Numerous pleas to Cutler Hammer resulted in a reply from their "investigator" well no one else is having this problem. and we tested a whole panel of these together and we did not have any problem. No interest in checking the failed devices, lot numbers, etc.. Goes back to money:(

Great information. I am a small service contractor and have not had any recalls on installed GFCI's. The author did not mention if this problem was symptomatic of a single brand or encompassing several manufactures.

Several months ago we were asked to investigate if any GFCI recetpacles are American made or meet the Buy American Act. The conclusion was that ALL the GFCI receptacles starting about 2 years ago are made in China. I don't have any knowledge on when this failure trend starting to go up or if there are brand names that seem to work better than others.

Good forum and very informative. I will be sure to tighten my acceptable manufacturer's list to include to exclude the devices that cannot be held accountable for operation. I generally do not approve foriegn made products when USA made are available. The lack of accountability is not worth it. Thanks everyone for your comments! Jeff B. Tampa, Florida

I wonder how many of these failed GFCI's were made in China, or some other foreign country?

Dear Mike, This article is very interesting and strikes home with me personally. I have 3 GFCI outlets on the exterior of my home of which are used mainly for the timers of low voltage landscapeing lights. I have had to replace each one of these devices three times in the last five years of which one encounter was very scary as when I removed the bubble cover on one of the devices I discovered that the device was actually MELTED at both conductor terminals and yet the breaker for the circuit had not tripped. I am a Building Official and these failures at a personal level concern me.

We have many temporary power centers used for construction power. These centers are equipped with step down transformers, distribution panels and many GFCI receptacles for power tool use. We have encountered a large amount failures of these GFCI receptacles. We think the problem was ocurring when workers would plug in a GFCI equipped pigtail cord into a GFCI receptacle on our temporary power centers. When we announced to all of the trades to avoid stacking GFCI onto another this problem appeared to be resolved.

I think that GFCI receptacles aren't made very well. Over the last few years I see a large percentage fail. Either cheap materials or cheap assembly to keep costs down have actually cost us more due to having to replace so many. I think the thing to do is to improve the quality from the manufacturer.

My question: Are GFCI's inductive (HP) rated, and able to withstand inrush or starting current? Mr. Hightower mentions the use of power tools, compressors etc. Suppose a trip occurs during a starting event, what effect would this have?

To save costs on rebuilt automotive devices (alternators, starters, etc) some rebuilders do not do a final bench test but instead rely on the end user to do the "final test", culling as a previous person mentioned in this thread on GFCI's. There is of course no problem getting a replacemnt, its just a pain in the butt having to go through the replacemnt routine-- It seems this may be the case with many GFCI's Buying the higher priced unit is often cheaper in the long run Read Ruskin's "The Lowest Bidder" written about a hundrend years ago

I do not know why the GFCI are failing in large numbers. Check out http://hss.energy.gov/CSA/CSP/sci/SCI_TrainingManual_100306_rev5.pdf for information on counterfiet items. It is a 68 page book published by the US Department of Energy. Counterfiet GE and Square D molded circuit breakers are on of the items shown complete with pictures of some of the area to look at closely. Are counterfiet GFCIs in the mix?

During 25 years of homebuilding we found that GFCI failures were practically non-existant when we used Cooper devices (formerly Eagle), and almost guaranteed when we used Leviton, which sometimes "fried" when the circuit was first energized. The Cooper devices also seemed to tolerate the surges during storms; tripping before the breaker and protecting equipment downstream. In both cases we always used GFCI devices rather than GFCI breakers.

Such a huge number of replies in such a short time since posting!

I am sure these represent the opinions and experiences of a true cross-section of qualified and experienced individuals who know what they are talking about - so, it is decided:

GFCI receptacles are a joke! But, not a harmless joke! What happens when someone dies ... anyone still laughing?

Why aren't there more deaths if these devices are as faulty as is being reported here (and I too believe the fault rate is atronomical)?

I believe that if even if just a death or two resulted in legal monetary awards to a victim's family, the industry would react.

But, despite the reported failure rate, I do not guess that such as happened - so ...

Are GFCIs really necessary in the first place? I understand the principle behind them, but are we being tricked into believing they are actually performing that function?

We have the technology to make cars that automatically turn, veer, or brake in the event of a 'sensed' impending collision, which obviously would be capable of saving lives. How would you like to own stock in the company that manufactures the required equipment if the Department of Motor Vehicle mandates a law requiring such protection in your state? And suppose that in practice, the devices do not perform to the theory?

Star Wars can protect us from incoming nuclear missiles - but are we as consumers really going to pay for it?

What can we do? We are being forced to use (and pay for) technology that is not working. Unfortunately, we are not able to unite and simply refuse to quit buying and using the product! The NEC and the AHJs say we must continue to buy and install this junk (and of course pass on the cost to the consumers...)

And, as someone else mentioned above - in comes AFCI protection!

The answer always seems to come in the form of money - sue!

If no one is dying from these inferior products, but we are still forced to use them, then how about this -

Let us all unite and file a class action lawsuit against all GFCI manufacturers for damages - the accumulative labor to individually test each item installed (necessary because of the devices reputation and track record) and the cummulative labor to re-install all failed devices.

Add to that, punitive damages since the manufacturers must obviously be aware of the problem yet fail to respond.

I, for one, am not going to try to sue a corporate giant over a hundred failed devices, but if we as contractors unite and sue for a million devices, maybe we can get somewhere.

This problem is unacceptable. We all have taken the time to talk, read, and write about it. 100+ page reports have been written. The problem has been studied and documented in precise, scientific detail.

So, what is going to be done about it?

I'll bet not many attorneys read this forum, but I'd also bet that there is more than one who might wish to undertake a class action if enough support is shown in reply here.

I am sick and tired of replacing defective equipment at my own cost. I am almost to the point of telling the customers that they have to pick out their own GFCI receptacles and I will install them with no guarantee to their performance, like I sometimes do with other lighting and fan products ... You buy it, I'll install it. You buy cheap, you pay me to re-install it.

I am surprising myself in just how angry I am getting over this thorn in my side, a thorn that until now I'd simply endure and dismiss.

What say ye? Shall we continue to complain? Woe is me? How about woe to them?! If I see enough serious reply, I'll pick up the torch and run with it!

http://search.cpsc.gov/query.html?col=pubweb&qt=GFCI&x=6&y=10

Link to results for a keyword (GFCI) search on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website

Is this happening with 15 amp receptacles only? With various brands? Have you tried using a GFCI breaker in lieu of the receptacles? If you can get most of your required devices on a couple of 20 amp GFCI breakers you would be money ahead.

I have also seen this issue with GFCI failures, I have been in the electrical field for 14 years and over the last 4 years I have been noticing that on average about 75% f the GFCI Receptacles that I have installed fail right out of the box. Then when I go and purchase an additional GFCI receptacle same brand model and so forth it functions properly. For this reason when in the need for installing these receptacles I have to double purchase the receptacles so that I do not have to make multiple runs to the hardware store to complete the job I am working on.

What we fail to understand is that as long as the manufacturers are allowed to sit on and help write the NEC these so called safety devices will continue to be written into the code because it makes the manufacturer and their buddies on the board lots of money. Why do I need GFI protection on a piece of commercial kitchen equipment if I plug it in but if I hard wire it then I don't need GFI protection? Either I do or I don't. AFCI are the same thing. Guess what? 2008 all circuits in houses to be AFCI protected. CHA-CHING!!

Follow the money.

Sorry about the previous. A little quick on the "send" button. In any event, in addition to the interesting findings of the NEMA analysis of failed GFCIs would it not be useful to also track the failures by manufacturer and country of manufacture? Wouldn't that give us a direction for further investigation?

I have replaced my GFCI in my kitchen 4 tiimes in two years. I was a low voltage electrician so I have an idea about electricity. Im still studying and have thousands of questions but no where to ask them ( embarrased I guess). My GFCI just keeps clicking for no reason. Nothing plugged in at all. It will just click.... sometimes back to back. I have thought of swappig it out for a regular Spec grade receptacle but, I know that is not the proper thing to do so I spend /waste money on replacing it whenever it starts to click.

New Girl11

When a GFCI without any interrupting rating attempts to clear a ground fault with significant fault level,it experiences a surge current and it is likely that it may be damaged.So usage of GFCI with interrupting rating may reduce the failure rate in the field.

A minor point - in reviewing the test report I found the description of the climate and lightning conditions in section 7.7.4 Permutation 4, page 28, to be in error; the heading and text should read "Lightning Density High, Climate Cool and Dry" (reference page 2, Table 2.1 - Meteorological Conditions of Permutations; Permutation #4).

I do not consider GFCI's "robust" as the small IC and SCR are not capable of absorbing surges or overloads-- also, in recent years GFCI's are made abroad, and the quality and spec conformity of the components can be questionable. Price kept coming down, so did the quality and robustness of the internal components. What is needed is a return to culling out weak semiconductors at the manufacturer's level before assembling the GFCI. Too often it is left for the electrician to "do the culling"--

How pays for the time to put in new gfci's switches to be installed . this make all of us look bad! It's crime !the whey things are going.y shoud. we pay for this 15$ gfci 15min to take it out go get a new one if you have it .call in a new one .or go get it 10 min to 1 hr .no one look at the time for the fix .try yo get the money form the stor .o hers the gfci .can i get 1.5 hr to put this in from stor like lowes or a box stor .good luck so most tack in the pooper! I bey yhe best switches & gfci this is the way to go .it seem to sae me time & $ less call backs

Well if the failure rate is high while everyone is testing with a button tester, I wonder what the failure rate is when one uses a trip level GFI tester. I use a tester which tests the level at which the GFI trips (5-7ma) and anything outside that range is indication of a defective GFI although it will test good with a button tester. I would suspect that the unit failures seen are made in China. There\'s not a lot of electronics in these devices however the circuit design and component grades have a significant impact on performance and longevity. Consider the retail on some are less than $10 so you can assume the component grade is very low. Also keep in mind UL to my knowledge does not do any longevity testing, just tests with regards to meeting UL specs.

IMHO every electrical contractor and AHJ should be using a trip level GFI tester, I hardly think a button tester is adequate for these specialists.

Without any spec mandating component grade or longevity testing I would suspect we will continue seeing high failure rates on these devices.

Consider what a GFI is designed to protect and how little importance is imposed on performance quality control.

My experience is if a GFI tests within the 5-7ma range the device will usually sustain the test of time.

IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF MISWIRING FOR A GROUP WITH ALL THAT STATED YEARS OF EXPERIENCE. WHAT BRAND OF GFCI ARE THEY INSTALLING. I HAVE HAD BUTTON STICKING AND NOT COMPLETE;Y RESETTING THE FIRST TIME ON LEVITON.. THE SHORT TEST CAN ALSO BE MADE BETWEEN THE NEUTRAL AND THE GROUND, I USE MY WIGGY.

Mike, I have noticed some of the same findings as mentioned. The conclusion that we have come to is that there is a much high fail rate for all reasons from GFCIs that are not name brand. I replaced approximately %25 of a bulk order of GFCIs, and needless to say have not bought any more like that. Since the new code has passed and the smart lock GFCI made by Leviton has been readily available, we now only use it and I have seen the fail rate die. In the past six months I think I may have replaced two out of the hundreds my company has installed. This led me to a conclusion that the quality of the GFCI was causing my warranty problem.

I've been mentioning this to a lot of people. I never remember having so many failures on GFCI receptacles. I bought quite a few at Home Depot, so I thought that maybe they were selling a cheaper device. After reading this, I see that this is a much bigger problem. Are the manufacturers trying to save money by making inferior products?

Maybe this is why you can buy a gfci outlet at your local home improvement store for $3.50 ea. The best I had ever been able to do prior to this was $7.00 each for a lot of 800 of them for an apartment complex we wired. Sounds like the elimination of quality control has enabled manufactureres to cut the price in half on their products!!

The study was completed in 2001, so the GFCI devices examined used more mature design technology. Since the recent manufacturing change, I have seen a dramatic increase in GFCI failures out-of-box. While I haven't kept any figures, my guess would be that as many as 30% of the GFCI recepticals I have installed failed to operate correctly on initial test. These failures are clearly not an issue of environmental damage or abuse, but are manufacturer defects. While I hope that the rate will go down as manufacturers work out issues, I do wonder what type of quality control system would allow such a large percentage of failed product to enter the market in the first place.

I am an electrician, an engineer (PE), and an MBA. I do not question the professionalism or accuracy of the data. However, all this seems worthless without some intrepretation. What does this mean and where are we going with this. Each time the Code is revised additional GFCI's are required. To project the trend would be to assume that some day all receptacles will be GFCI. Therefore their reliability is a growing concern. One manufacturer indicated to me that major changes were coming. Apparently some devices do not actually test the protective circuit when the test button is pushed. I have always assumed that an internal resistor was connected between hot and ground to allow 6 ma of current to flow and thus tested the protective circuit.

So, what is the Conclusion?

I am a home inspector and electrical engineer and would estimate GFCI receptacle failure to be approx. 20% in the homes I inspect. Not all are exterior receptacles.

I, too, can attest to a rather large percentage of GFCI receptacles in the field that fail. The large majority of these simply don't trip when tested with the receptacle's own test button, although occasionally, the receptacle will indeed trip, but then can't be reset. Still others, the receptacle will trip using the receptacle's own test button, but won't trip using the GFCI circuit plug tester. I know the method of tripping, in this situation, is different than how the receptacle's own trip button mechanism functions.

When I run across these failures, I recommend to my clients that a licensed electrician replaced the failed receptacles since they can be improperly wired.

When I was in school, ( Electrical Trade ) I was assigned to work in a new building for the Instrumentation students, in which we had to install 30 recpt ckts for instrumentation test benches and labs, all of them being protected with a GFCI rcpt. After installation we powered them up to test them, we found that almost one out of every four was not working properly, in all cases, they would not reset after tripping. Of course we dissasembled the benches only to find that the wiring was correct and needed no adjustments. Our contractor and Journeymen assumed that it was a factory deffect. 25% of the GFCI's we installed defective?? This seemed to us to be a bit much for factory error.

Another EE here, and I've been in the semiconductor world for many years. I suspect that if a root cause analysis were performed the increased failure rate might correlate well to a change in the IC used in the part. When a part runs in high volume it will eventually become cost effective to do what is called a "die shrink". Since the cost to process a wafer is quite stable for a given process an increase in die/wafer goes directly to the bottom line. As the geometries of the structures on the die get smaller they may become more suseptable to damage from ESD, overcurrents, inductive kicks, surges, etc. if these failures are occuriing with one of the more reputable brands then they must be aware of the issue by now. Often times the fix has already been implemented but there are many parts left in inventory that no one wants to write off.

m2c

jb

Some time ago I learned that there are many counterfeit GFCI in circulation. I would suggest keeping the packages of units being installed and when there is a failure send the GFCI and the package back to the manufacturer so they can determine if it is counterfeit

Just completed a 109 unit renovation. Approx. three GFI receptacles per unit,15A, another 10 throughout the commercial space, 20A. Failure rate was definitely excesive on the 15A GFIs'. Probably replaced 20 throughout the project. None of these were in use during construction. 350 total installed, 20 replacd due to failure. 6% was the failure rate. What is normal failure rate?

If the GFCIs are this problematic, how are the AFCIs going to fare? Probably not well, MANUFACTURERS' CLAIMS TO THE CONTRARY. I scanned it quickly, but what kind of tests are done to certify these devices? I recall having to apply 2000V spikes to all incoming lines, zap the outside surface, run at higher and lower than normal Voltage, run at different frequencies, do FCC testing, very high and very low temperature testing, and doing burn in with a hot & humid room and the device running full out, just to get instrumnets and machines approved. I suspect these GFCIs aren't getting abuse tested.

The devices are weak. If 20% of cars died in the first year, that car maker would be toe up.

It has been my experience that GFCI failure is not new. Typically when I hit a house on a service call I check the GFCIs even though I am not there to do that particular thing. Thus I check several a day doing service calls. It is not unusual to find all GFCIs not working in a particular house. A attribute this to two things: one surge (this is a high lightning area) and moisture. Allegedly both of these problems have been taken care of with the new designs that are out now. By the way, some of the new designs cannot take the locator current/voltage that you put on the outlet to trace back to the panel--it blows them out.

we recently installed 47 gfci recpts.at a local hospital they were hospital grade and leviton brand ( 20 amp ) of the 47 installed we had 24 failures to reset . we removed and replaced all with a new batch ( of the same brand )and have no problems.we have contacted the supplier about the problem but have not had a response from the manfacturer

Failure analysis would go a long way to determining the likely culprits. Some basic information gathering would be of help also. Namely are the failures limited to a specific manufacturer or brand? If so have you contacted the manufacturer to determine if there is a bad batch of product? Design of the product may also be suspect. Have you tried different manufacturer's products?. Lastly you could make arrangements to send the defective units back to the manufacturer for analysis. I have seen a drop in failures since the required change in GCFI's about a year ago.

From a design aspect NOTHING you do at the load side should EVER damage a GCFI receptacle. Input surges are an issue. Consider selling surge supression systems to you customer's. They are high profit and save customer lots of headaches down the road. MP

As a home inspector I can assure you that the # one item that gets turned down in over 50% of the homes I inspect is the GFCI outlet. I tell my coustomers to please check them at least twice a year.

The authors of the report are careful to claim that they only publish the results, and draw NO conclusions.

Here's a conclusion. Almost 10% of the GFCI devices installed in this country do not function as they are supposed to.

This is a dismal rate. The auto industry would be sued into oblivion if 10% of their airbags did not deploy.

These devices do not deserve their UL rating if they are failed 10% of the time.

I work for a home improvement retailer in their electrical department here in SW Florida. I see many GFCI problems - too many returns, questions about GFCI functions, the works. In most cases I see downstream circuit problems, most notably a circuit to an outside outlet and/or light fixture, the later being corroded. I often suggest that before they replace the GFCI, disconnect the downstream circuit first, a test that will quickly determine if the downstream circuit is bad. I have not kept records so I do not know if the advice given worked or not.

I've noticed a general decline in the quality of all electrical components over the past several years - GFCI's included. When this first started to happen, I was so startled by the number of failures that I saved all the bad GFCI's and returned them to the parts house, who then forwarded them to the manufacturer for anaylsis.

The manufacture returned with a verdict of "voltage surges" ,but I strongly suspect that they are just not willing to admit that the increased failure rate is due to decreased quality of their product. There is no logical reason that a sudden upswing in "voltage surges" would begin to occur, especially considering as how this only seems to happen with that particular manufacturers product.

We have also experienced a huge number of three way switch failures lately - as many as half the switches in the box are bad, only to be discovered post installation!

This is very, very agrivating as a bad switch used to be a once a year event and makes trouble shooting that much more troublesome.

As an Electrical Inspector, I test nearly every GFCI receptacle that I come accross. There is occasionally a defective one, but not every week. In 20 years of inspection, I have about 43,500 inspections behind me.

I too noticed an exceptionally high rate of \"broken\" GFCI receptacles from the manufacturer a few years ago. We were wiring hundreds of apartments, so my usuage and installation of GFCI receptacles was very high. Whereas I might have accepted a \"few\" failed devices, we appeared to have dozens. I questioned whether they all came from the same case or the same supplier, but the problem did seem to cross all such boundaries.

I am not presently using such a volume of devices and cannot report whether or not the perceived problem has diminished.

I \"looked\" at the 100+ page report on GFI failures linked in the newsletter hoping to find some simpler answer or response to the question of failure rates ... I quit before finding/interpreting the data.

We have noticed many substandard receptacles being offered for sale at supply houses. I personally think it is the influx of outlets from foreign sources that is causing most of the problems. As a journeyman, I remember trimming out houses with certain types of generic outlets. The first obvious issue was that they were a "white-white" receptacle and if accidentally installed with a Leviton plate or receptacle would become instantly apparent. The Leviton white is actually more of a blue white if that makes any sense. I also noticed that a lot of the screws were substandard and would strip out, or the outlets would simply fall apart. So much for quality control there. I would not be surprised if this same quality extended to the GFI's from the same company.

Mike, After going through a 112 page pdf which consisted mostly of graphs and charts, am I to assume that they are attributing most failures to lightning and moisture? Could not the more recent rash of failures be due to an inferior quality of design and manufacturing? I wonder how many GFCIs are being produced in the U.S.A.?

I am also seeing more failures, not just of GFCIs, but basic items like switches. On many projects i inspect, I'll find one ot two GFCI's fail when tested with a standard plug-in tester. Recently, I was on a job where an entire box of specification grade three way switches from a well-known manufacturer were defective - they worked a few times after the electrician installed them, then either made sparking noises when operated, failed intermittently or failed to oeprate altogether.

I am chalking this up to lax standards and overseas manufacturing.