On Aug 10, 11:57*am, Tony Hwang wrote:
JohnR66 wrote:
I'm trying to solve an issue at my brothers house. He came home and the
outlets around his kitchen had no power. I found the GFCI was tripped. I
reset, but it trips instantly. I unplugged every device and it still trips.
I bought a new GFCI, still trips.

Next I checked the load side hot to neutral with my meter. Infinity
resistance (nothing plugged in). I checked to be sure I was getting 120 volts
to the black wire and that it was connected to the line side of the GFCI.

Some other notes:
If I bypass the GFCI, The circuit works (no short)
With load side of GFCI not connected, it does not trip.
If I touch the black load side wire to the hot load side of GFCI, no trip.
If I touch the white load side wire to the to the neutral load side of the
CFCI, it trips! (I'm confused on that one)

Bathroom has its own GFCI circuit that works and I can find no outside
outlets on the dead circuit.

I'm puzzled on this one. Any ideas?

Hi,
G stands for Ground. Check ground wire? Ground is bare copper in the
outlet boxes or green wire on GFCI.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tony: A neutral/ground short/leakage yes. That could cause slight
current to flow in the neutral; but why when 'nothing' plugged in?????

Unless something is causing the neutral wire (beyond/downstream of the
GFCI) to have a slight potential rise; which 'might' be explained as
you suggest by a ground-neutral short somewhere?

Or does it suggest that the downstream neutral is 'shared' (possibly
illegally) with another circuit? Or somebody did an improper job of
replacing an outlet or something and got the ground/neutral crossed or
mixed up?

Because GFCI operate when there is an unbalance in the current flowing
in the live and neutral wires; they can in fact despite their name be
used in a non grounded outlet situation.

The described problem is a puzzling one. Am wondering if there is damp
wiring/outlet beyond (downstream of the GFCI equipped outlet?

Or is there a dishwasher/garbage disposal motor/booster water heater
etc. hooked in somehere; under a counter?