Will GFCI work with items without equipment ground
I know it's probably a dumb question but my wife's hair dryer is old and has no equipment ground. Wanted to be sure she is still protected if it should be dropped into water or otherwise shorted.
Forum Discussion
Harvard wrote:
Just imagine if your fridge or freezer was powered by a GFCI.....
We have a condo with a den. The den is used as a pantry c/w an upright freezer.
Being a den it is powered on the same "anti arc" breaker as our bedrooms.
Oh well, you know the rest of the story...
From what I've read, AFCI (arc fault circuit interrupters) are far more prone to nuisance tripping than GFCIs. Part of the reason is that some appliances, particularly ones with largish universal motors like power tools and vacuums, naturally have some arcing internally in operation that is not an actual fault or danger. Another part of the reason is that they detect arcs by "listening" for certain noise frequencies on the electrical line (or combinations of noise frequencies), and if you're unlucky some switching power supply or motor controller may generate a little noise that looks enough like an arc to it to trip it.
I'm very glad my house predates the AFCI requirements. I'm less glad it predates the GFCI requirements and have been adding in GFCIs where appropriate as I have reason to work on the electric system.
