I recently installed a new Leviton GFCI. Tested the wiring and all is well. However, when I try to push the Test/Reset button on the GFCI, it won’t budge. I plugged an appliance to it and tried to test, but no dice – can’t budge the buttons. I went back to Home Depot and tried to push the Test/Reset buttons on several of the boxed GFCIs and none of them would move. The HD guy was not sure, but he thought it had to be powered to work. Do I just have a defective GFCI or am I missing something here? Why won’t any of the boxed GFCI buttons test/reset? I have other older GFCIs that Test/Reset easily.
Edited 10/23/2003 1:52:54 PM ET by KAORISDAD
Replies
The test button only works when there is voltage applied.
bake
Thanks, so I guess that means I got a bad GFCI. There is voltage, but the buttons won't budge.
Before another trip to the store, make one last check of the wiring, making sure your power supply is using the "line" terminals, not the "load" terminals, and that the white and black are not swapped. Black should be on the brass "hot" screw and white on the silvery "neutral" screw.
Thanks - I'll check again, but I did plug in a receptacle tester and it showed it was wired properly.
Did you plug it into both outlets? If you wired it backwards ie power to the load side, that one outlet will still work, but will not allow a reset of the GFCI, and of course, won't continue the circuit thru to the other outlet.
Plugged it into both outlets and shows it is wired correctly. One thing I didn't do was check the wiring for the load side. If the protected circuit was wired on the wrong screw, would both outlets show that they are wired correctly, but the GFCI would still not function? Maybe that's my problem. All of the protected outlets function and are wired correctly.
Starting soon, GFIs won't work/set if miswired (for example) incoming wired to the load side.
Maybe you got one of the new ones?
Albert Einstein said it best:
“Problems,” he said, “cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them.”
Your mileage may vary ....
They do come defective sometimes. I'm just a homeowner, and I've had to replace one that was defective right out of the box -- after spending HOURS trying to figure out the problem because I assumed, "It's new, it must be OK." Electricians at work corrected my misconception.
This is true of almost every mass-produced item, of course, but still...I won't buy Autolite spark plugs now because on one car repair, two out of six were defective out of the box. Bosch or NGK for me -- never had a bad one.
you are so right, I go with the notion that one out of every 100 of something is defective. Just seems like I always get the 100th one all the time."One measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions"
Make sure your ground wire is not touching the neautral wire.
You may also find that they trip after a power outage as they rely on voltage to hold in the contacts .Some also get slightly warm to the touch after a while