Ground fault

tenbear wrote:

kg1d dx wrote:
I have a ground fault outlet on each circuit in my coach, but I keep frying the one in the bathroom. Happens when the circuit is over loaded usually by my wife's hair dryer. My question is why does the ground fault pop? The breaker does not trip. Could this be caused by the wrong amperage ground fault outlet?

Lets look at the function of a GFI.

The GFI looks for current flowing in the ground wire of the 120v circuit. There should be no current in that wire. If the GFI senses a current in the ground wire, it trips, shutting off the power to the circuit. It has nothing to do with the current flowing in the hot or neutral wires. That is the function of the circuit breaker.

Edit: Actually, I think it senses the difference in current between the hot wire and the neutral.

yes, it does sense the difference in current in the hot and neutral leg. if it sensed current in the ground, you could still get fried because most often if you get across the hot leg and ground, ground is NOT the ground wire in the outlet but another ground path.

But, GFI's also do sense for a ground/neutral connection downstream and will trip if they see a ground neutral bond. So, if the hair dryer for example has the ground and neutral shorted (which is should NOT have), the GFI WILL trip.

And MOST GFI outlets do NOT have a circuit breaker. they will NOT trip on a current overload, only a ground fault. That is why they are called "Ground fault interupter", NOT GFI/Circuit breaker.