ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Violation Photo Forum GFCI Protection, Required? Recommended?

Would nonmetallic drinking fountains survive the janitors/housekeeping staff?

NOCAL said, "Would nonmetallic drinking fountains survive the janitors/housekeeping staff?" The answer: NO. And in my school it would not survive the kids!

OK, My back hurts more these days after going up and down, and carrying a ladder all day. Which, thank god, I do not need to do very often. So I pondered the question while sitting in my #8 bonded and GFCI protected Hot Tub.
Here is my take, (We can all have fun watching it get shot full of holes!)
I will start with the idea that we are using the grounding conductor to provide an alternate path to the neutral as a way to clear 120V faults to ground. In the case of say a kitchen we have a potential to come into contact with both a hot conductor and a "grounded" metal surface (IE: water pipe.) bypassing the grounding and grounded conductors which serve the circuit so in that case GFCI protection is a great idea since the GFCI is going to trip when it sees more hot going out than neutral coming back. Same idea in a garage or a basement where we have an opportunity to say work in our bare feet on a damp floor while we try and fix that broken lamp switch while it is plugged in. ( Keep in mind here that we do not need to GFCI protect receptacles for certain appliances under certain conditions even in garages and basements.)

So with that said I see the drinking fountain as OK to leave on a non GFCI protected circuit. IF! it has been properly grounded then the case is grounded through the attachement plug and receptacle. Any fault to ground will be picked up by the "alternate path to neutral" wire (yes the green one.) and the breaker should trip and not reset until the path is cleared.

Well, it's good to see that electricity has finally reached West Virginia (haha).

More to the point, Kent, is that the smallest branch circuit is 15 amp; that's enough current to trip 300 GFCI's. The GFCI, which is set at a level where you only feel a small shock. Much more than that, and you can be seriusly hurt.
15 amps is more than enough to kill you. Heck, 1/10 amp will kill you. The circuits are sized to deliver the necessary energy and protect the wiring- not to protect you. The GFCI was invented to address this issue.

Must say that I do not understand your point. Then all circuits "should" be GFCI protected? Where do you draw the line?

Why draw a line at all?

Why not GFCIs for all 15 and 20 amp receptacles?

Is that such a radical idea?

It is now code for commercial kitchens.

I like Pierre's idea of plastic drinking fountains, I am sure they could be made durable.

Bob

you've a point Bob...

why not go whole house 300ma protection like Europe does. No doubt many 4 yr olds at the park or at home will aviod mulitudes of disasters right?

one would think the safety community would rather advocate a complete system overhaul like this than the year in/year out battle over issues like water fountains that merely take up CMP's time

I'm sure our oversaeas contingent could validate this if they wished

But then again, maybe it's not the destination, it's the ridethey desire, waving pictures of fried little girls in FF's arms around to push the latest widget?

Hey, it's a living right?

~S~

RSmike - if they could perfect that tech, you'd probably start seeing them used / allowed for sump pumps as well.

And I also think that, with appropriate design use of non-conductive materials, you could effectively insulate a metallic drinking fountain, without too much additional expense.

of course it may be seen as the pool calling the fountain black if i point out i can still hardwire one non-gfi....

tit/tat

potatoE/ tomatoE

???

~S~

Doug my sump pump is on a GFCI it operates a few times an hour during a rain storm. In the 2 or 3 years it has been on a GFCI it has never tripped.

I do agree with Sparky on the strangeness of the GFCI required / not required for pool pumps.