Replacing a GFIC circuit breaker with a normal one

[mbl]

I am in a 3 year old house and one of my GFI circuit breakers failed last night. I was not sure what was going on, but Xcel actually sent a guy out last night to confirm that the CB has failed.

These GFI CB's have been a pain in my butt since moving in. I am interested in replacing it with a regular one. The Xcel guy actually recommended the same thing.

I have replaced CB's and added new circuits before, so I am comfortable in the box. When I looked at it today, the GFI CB has 2 white and a single black. My question is what do I do with the two whites? Can I just disconnect them from the neutral buss bar and pull them out with the old CB? It seems pretty straight forward, am I over simplifying it?

Thanks for any input anyone can provide.

[jslo]

You talking ground fault (wet areas) or arc fault (bedrooms)?

[mbl]

This CB controls a bedroom circuit. Not a wet area at all.

[eneranch]

Have you tried to troubleshoot the circuit & find out what is causing the AFCI to trip? Is it affecting Lights or Receptacles?

[jslo]

That's a gonna be an arc fault. I'm a general not an electrician but my guy tells me they have made them less sensitive, then they were, to tripping. He won't swap them out to standard breakers for liability issues but for my own place I'd not hesitate to get rid of them. But then again my kids are grown and gone. Hopefully one of the electricians on here will chime in.

[rockhound]

hmmm, not sure why a house that new would have a GFCI breaker on a dry circuit. does it not attach to an outside outlet somewhere? does it run the garage outlet? even inside this should be protected.

The change over is fairly straight forward if you are familiar with breaker box wiring at all. but be sure there not a reason to have it protected.

the difference in the wiring is that the load positive and the load neutral are both connected to the breaker. and the nuetral is connected with a pigtail to the neutral bar, you should be able to place the load neutral wire on the nuetral bar and your load positive to the breaker like a normal breaker.



please be sure to check and make sure that you dont have a potentially wet outlet/switch somewhere on that circuit. be sure to use the proper gauge wire and breaker combo, 14g - 15 amp 12g -20 amp


i was also a general, i have done many projects from start to finish and i am not giving any type of professional advice, proceed at you own risk.

[sandman76]

It's an AFCI not a GFCI. Supposed to be there not a regular breaker. I'm an electrician and I'm glad that my house (2000) was not required to have these things. I sleep like a baby. AFCI requirements are the biggest hoax foisted on the electrical trade ever. The technology was not ready for prime time and still is not. IMO / YMMV and all that BS. Oh, you might have a real problem causing the tripping and you should have someone look at that before just changing the breaker.

[jslo]

I had one (a clients home) that appears to have been caused by the push in quick connectors for recessed cans. Electrician cut all the connectors off and replaced with wire nuts.

[mbl]

Thanks for everyone's input. As sandman correctly stated the CB in question is a AFCI, not GFI as I originally stated. The Xcel guy and others have told me that these things go bad all the time. He was pretty confident that it had gone bad as he said he has seen the symptoms frequently.

I will take a look tomorrow again at the wiring inside the box and make sure what was described above makes sense. If it does not, I will probably just try my luck with a newer one.

Thanks again.

[rbeau30]

I'm adding this to the excuses for coming into work late.

Sorry Boss! My Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter in my breaker box went bad and my bedroom electricity went out. But code requires it!

[Wulf202]

I despise arc fault.

[NFATrustGuy]

I had to install arc fault breakers in my basement when I finished it 6 months ago. All the reports I heard were that the breakers were a combination of unreliable and/or overly sensitive. After the electricity was turned on in the basement, but before it was finished, I found that some of my hand tools would immediately trip the arc fault protected circuits. Ended up having to run a long extension cord to a normal circuit to run the RotoZip and a couple of other tools.

Good thing the Govenment is so concerned with making us 100% safe. Unreliable solution at roughly 10x the price for about a .0001% increase in safety for something that was already 99.99 reliable and safe. Sounds about par for the course.

[Irving]

I'm adding this to the excuses for coming into work late.

Sorry Boss! My Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter in my breaker box went bad and my bedroom electricity went out. But code requires it!

Noted.

[Sparky]

Arc fault breakers are stupid and so are tamper resistant receptacles. If a kid can't learn the hard way to not stick shit in the plug then how will they ever respect electricity.

[Marlin]

Arc fault breakers are stupid and so are tamper resistant receptacles. If a kid can't learn the hard way to not stick shit in the plug then how will they ever respect electricity.

^^ This. I spent more time trouble shooting arc fault breakers last summer, than I had trouble shooting everything else in the previous 24 years. Everything from a loose fixture wire to the screws on a device no being tight enough. I also learned Arc faults, they do not like the "speed wire" method.

[Ah Pook]

Boulder Co. requires a GFI outlet at the first location of all wire runs. Did this when I built the garage. Biggest PITA ever. They would blow it you looked at them funny.

[Alpha2]

Is this crap required in new commercial construction? I do the dental equipment in new office buildouts, and some weird stuff is starting to happen on a regular basis. I HAVE seen a lot of those push-in connectors, I've had to insist they don't use them on x-ray or sterilizer circuits. I can't believe those things are even code.

[sandman76]

No AFCI breakers are required on commercial installations.

[mbl]

Just thought I would update this thread with what was actually happening. I replaced the suspected faulty CB, with a traditional breaker. I was shocked at the price difference between the traditional type vs. the "new and improved" ($4 vs. $39 at Home Depot).

After replacing the CB, I had the exact same issue. The CB would trip as soon as it was switched on. I was certain that the CB was installed correctly, so I moved on to troubleshooting. First I checked a ceiling fan that I installed 2 years ago. It checked out ok, I could not find any loose wires, or evidence of arc'ing etc. Just to be sure, I re-did all the wire nuts and re-tested. When I tested the CB again, my 6 year old said he heard a sound in the wall somewhere....This gave me a clue.

Next I went back and started going through the outlets, since that seemed like the most logical thing to do. On the 2nd outlet I pulled, I saw evidence of arching where the load line push into the outlet, i found that the ground wire was routed straight up the back of the outlet right in between the load and neutral wires. This would be OK, but one of the load wires was stripped too much and had bare copper exposed that the ground wire was touching. This was the issue!! I re-routed the ground wire so that it did not track up the back of the outlet and re-striped the load line in question so that there was no exposed copper.

No I am wondering how many other outlets and switches were carelessly installed.....

[rockhound]

as a former remodeling contractor I have found hundreds of poorly installed electrical fixtures, outlets, or whatever, O once gat a call to come out a nd finish a kitchen behind another contractor that had walked out on a job. he had taken the old panel which was behind the fridge, pigtailed to every circuit in order to in stall a new panel, then filled the entire old panel with drywall mud over the wiring and pigtails etc in order to finish the wall. I turned that job down, no way was i going to tie my name to that cluster in any way.

[flogger]

as a former remodeling contractor I have found hundreds of poorly installed electrical fixtures, outlets, or whatever, O once gat a call to come out a nd finish a kitchen behind another contractor that had walked out on a job. he had taken the old panel which was behind the fridge, pigtailed to every circuit in order to in stall a new panel, then filled the entire old panel with drywall mud over the wiring and pigtails etc in order to finish the wall. I turned that job down, no way was i going to tie my name to that cluster in any way.

YES! Dangerous and destructive things are hidden in the walls of older homes (20-120 years). There are/were a lot of DIY electricians out there, some meet code, most do not. While code revisions are meant to keep everyone safe, the new electrical codes (and many other building codes) have increased material costs which drives up home prices in the long run.
I grew up in a time before GFCI, ARCs and childproof outlets were thought of. Getting shocked by poking things in an outlet was a right of passage, I used the prongs at the end of a set of ww2 surplus headphones! One of my first memories, sigh!