ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Help me locate the hidden GFIC

Is it in the upstairs bathroom? :-)

Do the breakers have meaningful labels? Ok, so that was a silly question. Sorry.

- les

Some circuit tracers like the Greenlee PowerFinder will work with low voltage DC. You can hook to the neutral of the circuit through a 9 volt battery or 2 to a remote grounding conductor. The will let you trace the neutral back to its source.
Don

To all Sparkys,
I looked under the jacuzzi tub and there is a GFCI protected recpt that is protected by the GFCI breaker in the load center and is OK.The upstairs bathrooms as mentioned in my previous post are protected with her GFCI recpt.
Tell me more about the circuit tracers.Do you apply a signal to the dead recpt noodle or hot and then what?
Chris

Chris, this sounds like an expensive search.

Chris, I've got a tracer Amprobe AT-2004. It would trace that wire down through the walls in about 3 minutes, but it's not cheap. You need to get one that will trace in walls and floors.

Chris:
With my inspectors hat on:
Some contractors here (NJ) do this:
The mandatory outlet in the basement is the GFI
This covers the O/S recept & garage usually.
(You may have this to the bath)

The 3 bath houses have the GFI in the bath closest to the panel, usually the 1st floor.

A few go to the O/s closest to the bath, & then the bath.

IF NOT THE TESTER THAT EAGLE REFERED TO ABOVE IS THE "KEY", bought 1 about a year & half ago, and it is PRICELESS.

As another guess, how about in the attic, if the affested bath is on the upper floor.

BTW< for what it's worth, my pet peeve is a 350K to 500K house, 3 baths, & 1 GFI circuit?
(NJ still under '99 NEC) Talk about being "cheap!!

Good Luck...
John

Chris, I had a similar situation once and to make a long story short, believe it or not, someone had put a GFI in the crawl space,about 15ft. back behind a bunch of junk. I had to trace the wires from upstairs. I seen it was going out of the bottom of the box, so I went under the house. I used my little Greenlee pencil tester to see which romex didn't have power on it. When I found out, I traced it to the GFI. Whoever put it under the house that far, was FAR from thinking right Hope this helps... Steve..

Steve,
I wish I had a crawl space to look into but this being Fl(Big house on slab) no such space,however there is a storage space on the second floor that I have not gone over in detail.
Chris

Chris,

Here is another off the wall thought. Is there any sub panels? Maybe the GFI is a breaker in a sub panel? Anything like a walk in attic? Any subpanels up there? Some of the big homes I inspect here in NJ have many subpanels, they have been in garages, attics, basements, kitchens, and bedrooms. Let us know if you find it.

Harold

Hi.

I have some ideas, based on the answers to my questions:

Were you actually able to determine which circuit breaker services this receptacle?

What tester (make, model) did you use to test the receptacle?

What type of cable serves it (Romex, "BX", etc.?)