On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:35:09 -0800, croy
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 20:58:51 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 12/16/2012 7:31 PM, croy wrote:
On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:37:46 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


"croy" wrote in message
...
The last time I put in a ground rod at this house, it took
me a full day with a pipe-style post-pounder, and another
day to recover. The soil here is about an inch thich over
serious hardpan.

I've decided that I need another ground rod, closer to the
service entrance panel, to keep the GFCI breakers from
tripping needlessly.


Ground rods will not keep a GFCI from tripping needlessy. Either it is
defective or there is a good reason for it to trip.

Well, something is sure causing them to trip. There's
nothing plugged into the circuit, and still they trip. New
ones do the same. Some one in this group said that if the
connection to earth is too far from the panel, that can
happen.

If that's not the cause, then the only thing I can think of
is induction along the run near other wires.


One of the companies we do work for has a national contract for
installing electrical power connections for Red Box DVD kiosks
and there was a lot of nuisance tripping with certain brands of
GFI breakers. The company has settled on Square D breakers since
there don't seem to be nuisance trips with them. Whatever you have
connected to the GFI could be causing the nuisance trips even though
the piece of gear is completely safe and a different brand of GFI
may be less sensitive to whatever anomaly is causing it to trip.
I just reread your post and you write there is nothing connected to
the circuit and the GFI trips. Have you inspected the GFI that's
tripping or is it more than one?

Two. Both GFCI breakers are at the service entrance panel,
and both are on new circuits that I installed. The first
was installed about 5 years ago, and didn't trip for 3
years. Then it tripped at random intervals from 10 seconds
to 6 months. I bought the second GFCI breaker as a
replacement for the first, but the results were the same.
When I installed the second circuit, I put the first GFCI
breaker on it, but a few days later it tripped (nothing
plugged in), and continued to trip. I finally jerked them
both out and replaced them with standard breakers (for now).


It could be that the GFI has
corrosion or it could be damaged by voltage spikes coming in on the
power line. You didn't mention whether you've replaced any of the
GFI outlets. ^_^

If you mean outlets with the GFCI circitry built into them,
there are none of those. If you mean regular outlets on the
GFCI circuits, they are all new--either Cooper Arrow-Hart or
Leviton. I used all new 12 ga grounded cable when I
installed the circuits.

Panel and breakers are GE. Panel is close to 30 years old
now, but I'd think that it *should* be good for 30 more.
Panel was the choice of the installer I hired then. Not
sure it was a wise choice. I would try to clean the busses
where the breakers connect, but I'm not sure if they are
thinly plated copper, or worse. Doubtful they are pure
silver!

If outlets are subject to high humidity, the circuit may fault. Try
obtaining a ground fault receptacle and put at the first outlet as
feed thru. If it trips, move to next outlet and on until problem
location is identified. I have found Leviton to be fairly reliable.
--
Mr.E