SP GF breaker with load polarity reversed - what effect?

PetrosA · Oct 20, 2012

I had a trouble call last week for some floor receptacles in a basement slab. The GF breaker feeding them had been nuisance tripping at various times, which also killed power to some lights on the same circuit. I found that the wiring from the breaker was reversed - white hot and black neutral, ground was ok. Aside from that, the wiring tested ok with the megger up to 1000V with plenty of resistance (800-1000 Mohms to ground on both white and black). Could the reversed polarity have been causing the nuisance tripping, or should I have swapped out the breaker? I've never come across a GF breaker wired backwards so my experience here is limited

iwire · Oct 21, 2012

Reverse load polarity should not be the cause of the nuisance tripping. I suspect there is more going on.

erickench · Oct 23, 2012

Ground faults are usually low level faults but your circuit breaker may be set too low.

kwired · Oct 23, 2012

erickench said:
Ground faults are usually low level faults but your circuit breaker may be set too low.

There is nothing to adjust on a GFCI and it is supposed to trip on low level faults of anything greater than 4-6 mA.:?

erickench · Oct 23, 2012

kwired said:
There is nothing to adjust on a GFCI and it is supposed to trip on low level faults of anything greater than 4-6 mA.:?

Was it a GFCI? I thought it was a plain old ground fault breaker.

kwired · Oct 23, 2012

erickench said:
Was it a GFCI? I thought it was a plain old ground fault breaker.

Forgive the OP for not using proper terminology, he did use just 'ground fault' in his opening thread, but I thought it was reasonably clear reading it that he was talking about GFCI breakers, when he mentions unfinished basements and receptacles and single pole ground fault breakers as being the involved items with trouble.

I'm sure the devices you are talking about are ground fault protection of services and feeders of 1000 amps or more above 250 volt systems. Maybe he is asking about that but I think there is less than 1% chance of it.

zog · Oct 23, 2012

GFCI or GFP? big difference.

hillbilly1 · Oct 23, 2012

I've seen several old houses wired that way, from what I've been told, it was old military electricians. Their color code was white is hot, black is the grounded conductor. Urban legend? I don't know, maybe some old military electricians will chime in.

Little Bill · Oct 23, 2012

iwire said:
Reverse load polarity should not be the cause of the nuisance tripping. I suspect there is more going on.

Never wired or seen a GFCI breaker wired reversed polarity, but most of the GFCI receptacles won't set if the conductors are reversed.

iwire · Oct 24, 2012

Little Bill said:
but most of the GFCI receptacles won't set if the conductors are reversed.

How would it know?

I think you may be thinking of putting the line on the load terminals not swapping black for white.

iwire · Oct 24, 2012

erickench said:
Was it a GFCI? I thought it was a plain old ground fault breaker.

zog said:
GFCI or GFP? big difference.

I think the chances are very low that he has a single pole GFP breaker supplying basement receptacles and lighting.

Little Bill · Oct 24, 2012

iwire said:
How would it know?

I think you may be thinking of putting the line on the load terminals not swapping black for white.

It has an "electric eye" in it and it sees how you wire it.

I think that's what I was thinking that you thought I was thinking!:dunce:

PetrosA · Oct 24, 2012

Sorry for any fuzziness in the OP. It is a 15A SP GFCI breaker that I'm dealing with (Eaton's catalog# would be GFCB115, which is where I came up with the GF - that's just how I keep it in my own head...). It actually is a finished basement with wiring in conduit to two floor boxes, then out to lighting in the bathroom. The basement was finished about 10-15 years ago and the GFCI was the only one with wires reversed, so I don't think it's a case of old school electrician - maybe just Old Grand Dad helping out at the end of the day...

kwired · Oct 24, 2012

PetrosA said:
Sorry for any fuzziness in the OP. It is a 15A SP GFCI breaker that I'm dealing with (Eaton's catalog# would be GFCB115, which is where I came up with the GF - that's just how I keep it in my own head...). It actually is a finished basement with wiring in conduit to two floor boxes, then out to lighting in the bathroom. The basement was finished about 10-15 years ago and the GFCI was the only one with wires reversed, so I don't think it's a case of old school electrician - maybe just Old Grand Dad helping out at the end of the day...

I didn't think it was all that unclear what you were talking about. Yes GFCI is technically the correct term, but to just say "ground fault" in this trade, or even among non electrical professionals is (almost automatically) taken to mean GFCI, unless you are clearly engaged in a conversation about ground fault protection of higher amperage services and feeders.

The English language is so full of slang, words that sound the same but have different meaning, words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciation and meaning, acronyms, etc. it is amazing we ever get our point across to one another.

RichB · Oct 24, 2012

kwired said:
I didn't think it was all that unclear what you were talking about. Yes GFCI is technically the correct term, but to just say "ground fault" in this trade, or even among non electrical professionals is (almost automatically) taken to mean GFCI, unless you are clearly engaged in a conversation about ground fault protection of higher amperage services and feeders.

The English language is so full of slang, words that sound the same but have different meaning, words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciation and meaning, acronyms, etc. it is amazing we ever get our point across to one another.

for example--and I am going to use phonetic spelling here--why is it Kan-sas and not Kan-saw or Arkan-saw and not Arkan-sas When the only differance is the Ar ??

K8MHZ · Oct 24, 2012

RichB said:
for example--and I am going to use phonetic spelling here--why is it Kan-sas and not Kan-saw or Arkan-saw and not Arkan-sas When the only differance is the Ar ??

The pronunciation of Arkansas was made official by an act of the state legislature in 1881, after a dispute between two U.S. Senators from Arkansas. One wanted to pronounce the name /ɑr ˈ k ?n z ə s / ar-KAN-zəs and the other wanted /ˈ ɑr k ən s ɔː / AR-kən-saw.^[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas

Now you know.

RichB · Oct 25, 2012

:slaphead

UH-OH--Never thought of looking there--and I use it alot!!:ashamed:

Thanks !

PetrosA · Oct 25, 2012

Especially trade words seem to differ. I use two branches of the same supply house 45 miles apart and at one, they know exactly what I mean when I say I want a 1900 box. If I ask for a 1900 box in the other branch, I get the deer in the headlights look from the guys behind the counter. Another strange one is termad vs. TA. None of these are even remotely confusing in comparison to when I was trying to learn the Polish names for electrical stuff, though

Here are some direct translations for your entertainment:

3-way switch - stairway contact
breaker - shutoff
switch - contact
fuse - safety
quart halogen lamp - ember
junction/device box - can
GFCI/RCD - current differential shutoff

Needless to say, it took me a while to adjust

kwired · Oct 26, 2012

PetrosA said:
Especially trade words seem to differ. I use two branches of the same supply house 45 miles apart and at one, they know exactly what I mean when I say I want a 1900 box. If I ask for a 1900 box in the other branch, I get the deer in the headlights look from the guys behind the counter. Another strange one is termad vs. TA. None of these are even remotely confusing in comparison to when I was trying to learn the Polish names for electrical stuff, though Here are some direct translations for your entertainment:

3-way switch - stairway contact
breaker - shutoff
switch - contact
fuse - safety
quart halogen lamp - ember
junction/device box - can
GFCI/RCD - current differential shutoff

Needless to say, it took me a while to adjust

How about military names for things. Only one that comes to my mind at the moment is "screwdriver, cross tip".

gilamor · Oct 27, 2012

gf breaker

gf breaker

replace the breaker

http://www.amorelectric.com

SP GF breaker with load polarity reversed - what effect?

Senior Member

Moderator

Senior Member

Electron manager

Senior Member

Electron manager

Senior Member

Senior Member

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Senior Member

Electron manager

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Electron manager

Member