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GFCI test button

northern1 | Posted in General Discussion on June 4, 2012 03:32am

Hi, i recently purchased a house that has a levitron gfci outlet in a bathroom that works ok but the test button will not press in, it almost feels like it is locked. This is the only outlet in this bath and the wires appear to be hooked up correctly to the line terminals. I have also tried switching the circuit breaker off and on. I also took the wires off of the outlet and cleaned the wire ends with emery cloth. There are also two other gfci in different locations in the house that act exactly the same way. they all have power but will not trip with the test button because it will not depress. Do the levitrons have some kind of lock that can be reset or are all 3 gfci outlets bad and need to be replaced? Thanks for all the great knowledge on this forum.

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  1. DanH | Jun 04, 2012 07:41pm | #1

    It could be that the outlets were wired wrong, with power fed through the "load" side.  Newer units are designed to not reset if this is the case, but old units were subject to the issue.

    You can purchase a GFCI tester that will verify proper GFCI operation.  If the outlets are not wired right it should be on the seller's dime to fix them, if you want to pursue it.

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