It may interest a few out there that I installed a 2-pole 60 amp 120/240 Volt 3 wire "whole house" Pass & Seymore unit on my first home around 1970 as a result of my wife getting a shock on a faulted electrical frying pan. When I moved to my new home in 1981, I relocated this same Pass & Seymore device and subfed this device to feed an all receptacle subpanel in my home (with the exception of refrigerator, freezer, and outdoor receptacles which have individual GFI's). Amazingly, this device is still working fine today and is still in service! It is amazing that the 5 milliampere trip unit only occasionally causes nuisance tripping considering it is on all of the receptacles and receptacle wiring on my 3200 square foot home. I used all Hubble commercial grade receptacles and I believe this makes a big difference on leakage current. I will say this device may have actually saved the lives of two of my three sons years ago when they both managed to stick metallic objects into receptacles and were betwen hot and ground. It has also tripped on other occasions when it should have. I have tested the unit and it still functions as it should after 38 years--what quality!

I find it amazing that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has the data to show that GFCIs have saved more lives (from electrocution) in the last 30 years than any other piece of electrical equipment. Yet, when proposals are made to Code Making Panel 2 to require them throughout the house, CMP-2 refuses, despite the huge technical substantiation to accept the proposal(s). Then, AFCIs come into the game, have ZERO track record (the combination type had NO track record until January of 2008) and are required to be on nearly every circuit.

It makes me, and many others in the electrical industry, wonder who is getting rich in this process, and why consumers aren't being protected by a proven technology (such as GFCIs).

GFI's are cheap insurance at any price !!

Dear Mr. Homeowner,

We have good news and bad news. The good news is we have built this house with the latest technology for maximum safety and convenience. We have also made these new technologies law so everyone will benefit from them (especially the suppliers and manufacturers).

The bad news is the price of the house is more than you could ever afford. Go live in a Hooverville.

Signed, The Electrical Industry Proudly supporting the war on the middle-class.

Great find from years past notice the price of the GFI at that time now thwey are even moe advanced with the smart lock and you can find them less than ten bucks.

However, GFCIs are not perfect. The Water Pik that I use for washing fungus colonies out of the inside of my nose ( using a homemade tool ) sometimes nuisance trips the GFCI when I turn the Water Pik on of off. Since the tool is inside my nose when this happens and I do not feel a shock, there must be some type of static electricity phenomenon or a nonlinearity in the current transformer for sensing faults that must be causing this.

I still feel that GFCI is a great safety device. I one time applied Leviton's high current GFCI to a 480 volt 3 HP motor and a 10 KW single phase heater that were on 277Y480 volts. This was a chemical tank into which the operator was pouring in rust inhibitor and filling it with a hose. I also put in a current relay to check to see if the electric heater was actually delivering heat to the tank to also protect the customer.

Yet, there are some appliances that cannot be GFCI protected using the more common devices. Older refrigerators have too much normal leakage current which is not a hazard IF the appliance is grounded. Same for engine block heaters on diesel trucks because salt water forces its way into the wiring. This is not a hazard IF the truck is grounded. Similarly, if you do not ground the hoist motor of a 480 volt bridge crane the hoist ropes will have a nasty tingle voltage because of wiring capacitance to the frame no matter how ggod the motor insulation is.

The coal mining interests developed a technology just for these kinds of appliances and as a result the British have not had an electrocution in their coal mines since 1963 and they have 1,100 volt and 3,300 volt extension cords. What they use is continuous monitoring of the equipment grounding path so that the GFCI can be set to tolerate normal leakage current of an 1,100 volt motor. They also use resistance grounding of the power source so that ground faults are nonincendive and can be located and removed by the electricians. They also use individual shielding of extension cord conductors even for 110 volt hand tools so that if a wire strand breaks and then works its way through the insulation it will trip the GFCI before it reaches the surface or another hot conductor. About the only time that they have an electrical fire is when a machine runs over its own cord which happens about once in 10 years.

If go into say a U.S., coal mine 120 volt tools have 4 prongs, 2 for 120 volts, 1 equipment ground, and 1 ground check. This provides 24/7 assured equipment grounding anytime something is plugged in.

Essentially, there is such a thing as a 3,300 volt or 4,160 volt extension cord that is as safe as breakfast food.

It is interesting to see your News letter on "Earth fault box. Back in 1957 I worked ias an electrician n south Africa for a swedish born electrician by the name of Charlie Olsen. He experimented with a device using a Big & I mean BIG black box in conjunction with a Miniture Circuit breaker to disconnect a circuit from the mains if a current passed from the live "hot" or Neutral to earth. His aim was that this current should be disconnected before it could hurt a Fly. We Constructed a cage of pins wired alternatly to the two wires with a cork floor and roof & put a fly inside. He kept making adjustments to the Coils,transformers,resistors etc in his box.He kept all these a secrete from all. eventually he had the correct settings. The Fly shorteed out the pins and the circuit Breaker tripped and the Fly was snone the worse. Charlie had attained his goal. Unfortunatley he got no regognition for his work. He wanted to sell the device to the various manufacturers of the Circuit Breakers for a really low royalty. He did not want an outright sale as he prdicted that this device would be a long lasting and high volumne seller. In this prediction he was spot on.They have sold many millionsover the years and willdefinitley sell for many years to come in ever increasing volumns He always said that he wanted it to provide for his family long after his death. The various manufacturers did not want to play ball and despite the numerous copywrites he had he could not patent the idea. These Earth Leakage units were eventually manufactured by the various firms . Today it is compulsory to fit these EarthLeakage trip switches (RCD's) to all electric installationsin South Africa. Perhaps he should of sold out & at least got some small compensation for his forsight.