GFCI Risks? Update
Updated 24 March ------------ Having a new GFCI problem I have been unable to locate in the "receptacle circuit". While on shore power (from house) The GFCI receptacle on that string itself h...
Forum Discussion
keepingthelightson wrote:
IF you are connecting the shore power cord to a GFCI outlet on your house and you are expecting the GFCI in your trailer to work. IT will not. You CAN NOT have two GFCI on the same circuit in parallel. You need to remove your GFCI from your shore power at the house.
Good luck! ;)
35 yrs. electrical experience.
That makes absolutely no sense to me. A GFCI works by measuring the current difference between the hot and neutral legs, and tripping if it exceeds some tiny threshold. (The sense of the current is, of course, opposite—hence it's okay so long as the current flowing through the hot all returns via the neutral).
You can't have a GFCI wired such that there's a neutral return path separate from the GFCI, whether it's through another GFCI or not, but that's a different matter entirely. Connecting one GFCI to the load terminals of another is not problematic and indeed happens quite frequently—air dryers, for instance, have GFCI's built into their cord sets (required since 1991), and are commonly plugged into GFCI-protected outlets in bathrooms.
Edit: I guess apparently hair dryers may have immersion detectors rather than GFCIs in their cordsets, which is not quite the same technology, but the basic electrical facts remain.
