GFCI receptacles

[mshields]

At one time in my career I thought that a GFCI receptacle had to be on the end of the circuit in order that other receptacles on the same circuit would not be ground fault protected also. Conversely if you wanted all receptacles on a circuit to be GFCI, you could simply make the first one GFCI and you'd be done. I've since told that while you can wire an entire circuit to be protected by one GFCI receptacle, you can also wire the one GFCI receptacle such that it does not GFCI protect the others.

This of course is useful where you don't really need GFCI and you want to avoid any nuisance trips you might otherwise get.

Anyway, I was wondering if someone could clarify for me what the story is on this?

Much appreciated,

Mike

 

[fatboy]

It is true, rather than wire to and through the GFCI, so that it is in series, you can pigtail off and just pick up the one GFCI device, anywhere in the circuit.

 

[codeworks]

in the field , i call it line/loading the gfci, feeed the line side, the ones you want protected after that gfci are fed from the load side. and yes, you can just pigtail to hit the load side of a gfci at any point in a circuit and that particular one is the only one protected

 

[gfretwell]

GFCI receptacles generally are made to accept 2 wires per terminal so you can continue through on the line side without a pigtail or splice

 

[Rider Rick]

Read the paper work with the GFI and look at the back of the recepacle for the line and load.

Line is the power in and load would be the receptacles down the circuit if you want them to also be GFI.