How to test a GFCI - How to troubleshoot a GFCI - The Electrical Guide

good day youtubers welcome back to another video with the electrical guide today I want to show you how to simply test GFCI receptacles ground fault circuit interrupter receptacles usually found in your bathroom in your kitchen maybe your basement and your front and backyards at your house generally anywhere water is present you want a ground fault circuit interrupter receptacle so here I have one on the wall relatively new it's got two buttons here one says reset one says test they pretty much all have those two buttons reset in tests now you also see a little indicator here LED indicator showing this is operational so you want to test your GFI so your GFCI sorry maybe I don't know maybe once a month or once every two months just to kind of make sure that they're still working because they are there to protect you so you can just hit the test button and what you should hear is a little OPA and your reset button pops up so it's got a bit of an edge here now and I have another one here that you can see this is kind of what it looks like I'm pop set right you see it sort of sticking out there now if your receptacle has power when you press that reset button back in it's another ticks and force you should hear a little and it'll stick and be flush with the front of your receptacle and potentially your LED will come back on if your button sticks your reset button sticks in then you do have power here which is good if your reset button does not stick like you can see this one's not staying in obviously I have no power here so it won't stay so you can always tell your GFCI has power if this button stays in when you push it and of course you could test it with the test button and it should pop back out again showing that is it operational now a lot of the times in residential settings people have GFI's GFCIs protecting other plugs that may not have buttons on the front so a common problem is maybe your front porch receptacles not working or your back yard receptacles not working a lot of the time it's because a GFCI somewhere in your house has been tripped like this it is right now right i reset button sticking out my leg is um I've hit the test button so you're gonna go around your house and you're gonna just make sure that all of your aseptically working and the reset button is ticking in and a lot of the time what you'll find is that simple just that simple check is enough to get some of the receptacles that don't work in your house to work again now you'll see on the back of this one the word load and the word line so a lot of the times receptacles are wired off of the load side of the last GFCI inline and what that does is it protects all the other receptacles that come off that load side so it might not look like this but it will still be GFCI protected likely which is why even if it doesn't have buttons outside it could still be protected by GFCI tripping which is why you're gonna check this reset button everywhere in your house and likely that's all gonna take to get your receptacles working again in your parents or your wife or your friends are gonna thank you and think you're a wizard thanks for watching another video with the electrical guide please be sure to LIKE and subscribe

Channel: The Electrical Guide

Views: 106,606

Keywords: Electrical, Electric, Electrician, Electricity, Apprentice, Electrical Apprentice, Apprentice Electrician, Plug, GFCI, GFI, Receptacle, How to, How to electrical, test, troubleshoot, reset, residential, fix, outlet, gfci plug, gfci outlet, test gfci, gfci test, guide

Id: 6JpJv1AK8kg

Length: 3min 46sec (226 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020