On 7/28/2014 10:32 AM, Pete C. wrote:

Art Todesco wrote:

I have both in my house (5yo)

1st Weirdness:
We have a 2 room bathroom; one has a shower, sink and toilet, plus the
GFCI. The other room has only a vanity and mirror; its outlet is daisy
chained off the GFCI in the toilet room. About 3 month ago the GCFI
tripped for no apparent reason. I reset it and it was ok. BTW, there
are no other outlets, inside or out, on this GCFI. A few days ago, I
tried to plug a small fan into the GCFI (in the toilet room) and it
didn't work. I 1st thought it was the fan. The squirrel cage seemed a
bit tight, and dirty, so I cleaned it up anyway. It worked well on the
bench. Brought it back to said GCFI and it still didn't work. BTW, the
LED on the GCFI was on. And the toothbrush charger on the remote outlet
in the vanity room was also on. So I pushed the test button on the GCFI
and it tripped ... reset it and both the outlets on the GCFI and the
remote outlet in the vanity room now worked. Weird. The only thing I
can guess is that the GCFI has 2 sets of contacts, one for the outlet
built in, and one for the daisy chain. As I said, weird.

Dunno on this one, I'd just replace the GFCI since they're cheap.

2nd Weirdness:
Last night we had a thunderstorm blow through and it dropped about 1/2"
of rain and lots of noise. With the largest thunder, I happened to look
at the clock .... blank! I said, "power outage!" Then I looked in the
kitchen and there were some signs of light. Actually, power was on and
all those LED on everything were still lit. The AFCI had tripped. It
reset fine. It reset just fine. Weird!

An AFCI tripping on an induced signal from a nearby lightning strike
(real big arc) doesn't surprise me really.

Yeah, that's all what I thought. I just thought I'd rouse some
interesting conversation or see if others have had similar situations.
As to the AFCI, it was loud thunder that woke me up, but obviously, the
lightning came first and I was still ZZZZing. So I don't know how close
it actually was. The GFCI is probably just one of the cheap, MIC,
units. Too bad we put our lives on the line with that junk. I find the
power grid and telephone outside plant to be pretty primitive here in
the mountains, compared to big city areas or suburbs of big cities.
It's mostly that the companies don't seem to care as they are more
reactive than proactive.

Case in point, most of the phone lines in the area, I'm glad not mine,
have huge amounts of longitudinal 60Hz noise and the telephone company
doesn't seem to hear it or care! During lightning times, there's lots
of clicking, etc. on the line. Yeah I know the warning, but I always
use a cordless phone. Case 2: I have closed the doors on the telephone
remote site several times. I've reported it, no one seems to really
care. Once when I closed the cabinet door, it was raining and the
equipment inside was pretty wet. Luckily it was only the cabinet with
the line protectors. Another case, the county cuts weeds along the sides
of the roads. 2 years ago they completely took out a telephone pedestal
knocking out all phone and DSL on the mountain. It was fixed and
earlier this spring I stopped the bushwhacker from almost doing it again
.... he couldn't see the pedestal and he said he was glad I told him. I
called the telco and they did finally did respond by putting an orange
pipe so they could see it above the weeds. And speaking of weeds, at
the remote site (a DMS-10 for you telephone people), the weeds, vine
stuff, maybe kudzu, is growing all over the unit; into the AC/fan unit,
etc. Telco personnel are in cabinet several times a week, but nothing
has been done. When everything finally overheats and quits due to lack
of AC, maybe something will be done. Case 3: I had to call the power
company to report their voltage was going way too high! I had a piece
of equipment that didn't like voltages of over 130 some volts. When I
called and finally got some tech guy, he was interested in how I
measured it and finally said, Yup it's their problem. Over the next few
hours, I watched the voltage go down to about 117.

Sorry for the long rambling from an ex city guy.