How to Wire a GFCI Outlet - What's Line vs Load? - Electrical Wiring 101

hey everyone mark from top homeowner and today we're going to talk about gfci outlets now if you have to install a gfci outlet or if you need to replace one that's broken this video is going to cover the basics that you need to get the job done in either case um real quick just to show you what a gfci outlet or actually it's really called a receptacle what this looks like is this it's kind of like a big block a rectangle this is a normal receptacle you can tell it's quite a bit different and the reason for that is this has electronics inside of it in case there's any kind of electrical ground fault so basically electricity flowing where it's not supposed to typically these are found in locations that are wet like bathrooms and they can be found in other areas too depending on what your local codes are for the most part installing one of these is just about the same as a normal receptacle but there are a couple key differences that you need to be aware of a big difference between this type of a receptacle and a normal one is there's actually a load and a line input on this input and output so i'll talk about that when we get into the basics of wiring one of these up one other quick thing to note about these is not only can they protect the location where they're actually installed but they can protect the entire circuit that follows this receptacle so if you have an outlet that's powered after this one uh through the electrical wiring that it will actually protect that as well so uh we'll talk a little bit about that uh when we get into the wiring portion but i just want you to be aware if you ever have a receptacle in your house that's not working and you can't figure out why the breaker seems fine but you just have a receptacle that isn't working for some reason it could be because it's powered off of a gfci receptacle and you might want to check for that if you have a gfci especially in a bathroom area make sure these aren't tripped because if they are and you have another receptacle that's powered off of this one it's going to protect that too and so that one's not going to have power so just a quick little tip as a couple different ways that these can be used for so the big difference between this and a regular receptacle is on the back here you've got a couple different terminals right here on a normal receptacle let me get one out for you you kind of looks like you have the same thing right you've got two terminals on this side you've got two terminals on this side and you've got the same thing here but it's a little bit different on a gfci outlet um you actually have these two markings these two indicators right here it says load and this one says line now the difference is on one of these compared to this on this it doesn't matter which of these terminals you use like at the top or bottom obviously you need to make sure you're only hooking up your hot wire to the hot side and the neutral wire to the neutral side but when it comes to actually hooking up the wire line means on the gfci receptacles that this is the power coming from the panel the electrical panel that's in your house load is any additional outlets or receptacles that are powered off of this one as you can see here in this diagram this is a representation of what this looks like in practice you can see the breaker panel here and then it connects to uh with the line to the gfci receptacle and then you have your next receptacle that's daisy chained or connected off of that so that's what this kind of looks like in practice so obviously you want to make sure that you get this correct you can use a no contact voltage tester to test and see where the power is coming into the electrical box if you're installing one of these where it's not already installed meaning if you're replacing a regular receptacle with a gfci receptacle then you're going to have to make sure you identify which wires are coming from the panel if you're replacing a dfci receptacle then it's a little bit easier to identify because you'll know that the wires going into the line terminals on the old gfci receptacle are the same ones that you need to hook up in the line terminals on the new one you have also have a couple options here when it comes to installing wire you can either use side wiring which is wrapping a wire around this screw and that looks like this with a nice j hook here you can hook this onto this terminal and then you can tighten this connection down and that gives you a nice tight connection just make sure that this loop is pointing the end of this loop is pointing to the right because when you tighten it down you want to make sure that it tightens the loop down and it doesn't unwind the loop if it's the end of the loop is pointed to the left then it's going to want to unravel the loop if it's pointed to the right it's going to tighten it down with the screw the other option you have when wiring these is to use the back wiring method now the back wiring method can be a little bit controversial um and let me explain a little bit why that is on a standard receptacle this is a residential grade receptacle uh back wiring simply is these uh little openings here these little circles these holes and what you do is you basically stick a wire down inside these holes and the reason why these are here is because it makes wiring really fast for an electrician especially on new construction jobs they can get a lot more receptacles wired in home a lot quicker by using this method it's not the preferred method when it comes to a good solid connection preferred method on these is to use the side wiring method which is using the standard hook on the side that's going to give you the best connection here but there is another option for back wiring that is actually okay and in some cases is preferred with a back wiring option with a gfci outlet or receptacle and with commercial grade receptacles back wiring action is actually done with a clamp a compression clamp so what happens is you can stick the end of the wire in this channel in the back here and what what you do then is you'll tighten the screw down and that screw will clamp down on the wire this is actually just a fine method of installing a receptacle and the reason for that is is because you are taking the full weight of the screw the full pressure of the screw and tightening it down on the copper with the residential grade receptacle um you're not using the screw in this case to to clamp down on the wire you're just using the pressure of a little clip inside so with this one you're actually using the full pressure of the screw and this is just fine and actually it's a lot easier to install because you don't have to make the hook you just need to strip off the wire and put this in the hole now when you do strip off wire you want to make sure that it's not too long i'm going to show you if i stick this in here um i i've gone as far as i can go inside of this uh buying this clamp here and uh there's still copper that's exposed that's going past the edge of this receptacle so that's too long with this what we would need to do is we would need to trim the end of this off to get it a little bit shorter so that way it seats in and the insulation is protecting it if too much is exposed then we're going to risk having a short inside the electrical box which is really bad and here's an example with a shorter wire and actually this is the correct wire for this terminal because this is the hot side and then this is a black wire so if i stick this in here you can see um there's copper all the way behind this uh the clamp there and then the insulation is protecting it all the way down to about here so this is just fine you can install it here tighten it down and everything will be okay now while this isn't actually inside of an electrical box i will show you the process of what it looks like to install this if it was in place when it comes to the wiring so again you've got the brass terminal which goes with the hot wire so you would stick that in here make sure it's down nice and tight and then tighten this down with a screwdriver the silver terminal is going to be for your neutral line or your white wire slide that down and then your ground wire is going to go right in here now if you do have a wire that's got a green insulation on it you'll want to make sure that the green insulation is above this clamping point because if it's not above the clamp point then you're going to have a bad connection here behind this this clamp okay so that's what it looks like if you just had a receptacle coming in and it was not powering any other receptacles in the circuit this would all come into the line here you've got black to brass you've got white to neutral and then you've got your bare wire to the ground okay another way to tell which side is hot and which side is neutral is the small side on the the front is always going to be the small slots always going to be hot and the wide slot is always going to be your neutral that's about all there is to it hopefully you found this video helpful if you did i appreciate you subscribing to the top homeowner channel where our goal is to help you become the best homeowner that you can possibly be we cover everything from product reviews to home improvement tips and tricks and even some remodeling videos so you want to be sure to stay tuned and not miss any of the videos that we have planned alright thanks again for watching and we will catch you in the next video

Channel: Top Homeowner

Views: 144,513

Keywords: diy projects, home repair, home remodeling, diy, homeowner, top homeowner, tophomeowner, remodeling, home wiring 101, electrical wiring 101, electrical wiring diagrams, home wiring basics, gfci, gfci outlet, gfci receptacle, gfci install, gfci wiring, how to install gfci outlet, how to install gfci receptacle, how to wire gfci outlet, how to wire gfci outlet in series, how to wire gfci receptacle, ge gfci receptacle, gfci wiring diagram, line vs load

Id: Uop79H_iqoQ

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021