What Is A GFCI Outlet?

Welcome to the Check a Pro Radio Show, where home improvement is our passion. In this episode, we discuss those mysterious outlets with buttons near your sink, garage, or swimming pool. These are GFCI outlets, crucial for your safety, and we're here to demystify them for you.

Join us as we talk with expert electrician Luke Strange from Cool Hand Electric. Luke explains the purpose of GFCI outlets, how they protect you from electrical shocks, and why they often trip. He also shares practical tips on resetting these outlets and highlights the importance of regular testing.

Homeowners often face frustration when a GFCI outlet trips, cutting power to multiple outlets. Luke provides insights into why this happens and offers advice on locating and troubleshooting these outlets. He also emphasizes the importance of hiring licensed and insured electricians for any electrical work in your home.

Don't miss this informative episode to ensure your home's electrical safety and gain a better understanding of GFCI outlets. Listen now and empower yourself with essential home improvement knowledge!

 

For More Information visit them at www.coolhandelectric.com or call them at 469-874-0198

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Check A Pro Joe here on the Check A
Pro Radio Show talking home improvement as we
do you know a lot of you are probably wondering what that
funny looking outlet is near your sink or maybe it's in the garage maybe it's
even outside near the swimming pool it's not a typical ac outlet it has these
buttons on it and sometimes it's frustrating because if one of those buttons

(00:25):
pops you lose electricity, not only in that outlet,
but in possibly other ones as well.
So I brought in an electrician. This guy knows his stuff. His name is Luke Strange.
He is from Cool Hand Electric.
How are you doing, Luke? Doing fantastic.
How are you doing? I'm living the dream. Thank you so much. I love our listeners.

(00:50):
They love their homes, But they don't have all the answers.
And by the way, everybody, when it comes to electrical work,
always hire a licensed and insured pre-qualified checkup pro electrician, much like Luke is.
So the GFCI outlet, basically, what is it and how does that help with safety?

(01:12):
Yeah, no, great question.
These are that's what we're talking about right there.
There are some different brands. This is just one I had in my little toolbox for training purposes.
But they say to test monthly and to reset it.
So the basic idea of this is, whereas your circuit breakers will protect the

(01:35):
wiring from overheating, the GFCIs protect people from getting shocked.
Shocked okay so if there's power going
from instead of the constant circuit from the hot to the neutral instead of
all that amperage staying on those lines if it's bleeding out to the ground
that's what ground fault if it's bleeding out to the ground that has a potential

(01:56):
of shocking somebody if they touched it so it kicks off automatically now we
see this in the wet areas you had mentioned that.
That's a common thing. If water were getting inside of these spots or maybe
on the cord or something that's plugged into it, if moisture is getting in there,
that voltage, instead of being properly on the circuit, it can start bleeding

(02:18):
out into other surfaces.
And kids or anybody can go and touch something metal and they become the shortest
pathway to ground and get themselves shocked. So that's the purpose of them.
When they trip off, it'll have a light or it will lose its light.
Just depends on the brand.
But if there's no power there, it's really common to be able to hit the reset

(02:41):
button really firm. And actually I've noticed some, some of the elderly folks,
my, or ladies with really long nails, you know, have a difficult time pushing in.
So they think they're pushing it hard, but it's not hard enough.
So if that's the case, you can get like a pencil eraser and you can push that
sucker in like that and firmly push it in.
It should reset if it doesn't holler at somebody, but also the,

(03:03):
um, it will, it's got power going in, but then it can also protect other lines going down that way.
So if something down the road looks like a regular outlet, that one could be
GFCI protected from one of these.
So it's just they're also accurate for about 10, 10, 15 years,
depending on how much they're used. And then they are supposed to be tested frequently.
So that's kind of a general. Is that helpful at all on on the GFCIs? No, absolutely.

(03:29):
And you know what happens? I know you know this as an electrician, Luke.
You'll get a call at the office from a homeowner and they'll say for some reason.
The outlet in the garage doesn't work and
i went to the breaker box i went to the panel
yeah everything seems to work okay what they don't know is maybe in a closet
somewhere or maybe next to a sink somewhere the GFCI breaker tripped and in

(03:57):
line there could be two other outlets and they don't work anymore.
And so why don't you talk a little bit about how that happens?
Yeah. So there's no, that's, that's happened a lot.
Um, when, when someone builds a home, it's, it's highly engineered.
And so they're going to put the more expensive outlets in one spot and do the bare minimum outlets.

(04:17):
They, they can down the line. It saves money on building, but the irritation
is someone gets into homes. They're not trained on where everything's are.
If they bought an older house, you know, they don't know where that
stuff is and they don't really care about it or
learn it until there's not power so they can
be put in some of the weirdest spots we found we
found them in the weirdest locations and then sometimes they

(04:40):
just don't work well so there's power there but they're not power feeding
out and it won't reset sometimes that's common so um
it is a frustration that they're important
um so that's that's a good thing they
do protect people from getting shocked but trying to locate them
and to thoroughly test if they're tripping properly
that that can be a frustration we do get a lot especially

(05:01):
um you know we're Texas people will have
their freezers um you know they have we hunt a lot you know obviously so they
got freezers full of meat and that goes out they go out on weekend and lots
of storms trip something outside and and then that garage outlet is out and
then you got bad um you know you got All of your meat that you buy.

(05:24):
My wife and I, we go half with our friends on a cow, you know,
so we have like $1,000 worth of steaks and hamburger processed meat in our freezer.
And when that goes out, it's so irritating.
But, you know, I get the purpose of it. And even some old appliances,
some old appliances will trip them off.
And it seems like a nuisance, but those old appliances aren't really safe.

(05:46):
They're kind of sending voltage out on the metal frame.
So those ones got to go, too. They could shock somebody.
So they're necessary, but yeah, they can be very frustrating. Absolutely.
Luke, before we go, you brought up a really good point. A lot of homeowners don't know,
about what's going on in their house from their plumbing to their air conditioning

(06:07):
to their electrical. Here's a recommendation, everybody.
When you get your home inspected before you buy it, don't just have the home
inspector go through it and give you a report.
Go with the home inspector and ask questions. This is your home.
This could be a quarter of a million or a half a million dollar home.

(06:28):
Okay? Absolutely. And people will ask more questions about their new Chevrolet
than they will their home.
And you need to understand where things are and how things work.
Now, for me and Luke, we love homes.
We understand the systems in a home because we're into home improvement.
But you should really understand where's the water heater, where's the electrical

(06:50):
panel, where are these GFCI switches?
Because, yes, you do have them. If you have an older home, it should have been upgraded by now.
And that's another reason why you should talk to Luke, actually,
because it is dangerous. It is code now.
And once an electrician starts working on something, they got to bring it to code.
Luke, thank you so much for joining me here on Check A Pro Radio.

(07:12):
I really appreciate your expertise today. Absolutely.