ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area GFI Connections

Can someone please tell me the correct way to hook 2 GFI's and 1 regular 20amp duplex receptacle using one circuit in a commercial building. The regular duplex receptacle cannot be on the load side of the GFI's. The 2 GFI's are for the men and ladies restroom and the regular duplex receptacle is for an office. I always thought you needed a seperate neutral for each GFI you put in line on one circuit.

>Can someone please tell me the correct way to hook 2 GFIs and 1 regular 20amp duplex receptacle using one circuit in a commercial building. The regular duplex receptacle cannot be on the load side of the GFIs.
So just pigtail them off your branch (parallel).

>I always thought you needed a separate neutral for each GFI you put in line on one circuit.
No such requirement technically or in Code.

So you are saying to just go to the line side of the GFI's when making my connections,then I do not need another neutral? Will the GFI's ever trip if they sense an imbalanced load in whatever is plugged into the regular receptacle?

Is this a multi-wire(2 or 3 hots and one neutral)circuit?

This is a single circuit application, 1 hot 1 neutral and a ground for 2 20amp GFI's and 1 20amp duplex receptacle.

>So you are saying to just go to the line side of the GFIs when making my connections, then I do not need another neutral?
Correct.

>Will the GFIs ever trip if they sense an imbalanced load in whatever is plugged into the regular receptacle?[/B]
Not really. GFCIs are pretty clueless about the line side.
That's why they don't work if wired in backward (line and load interchanged).

Thank You for your help. So the only time you would need a seperate neutral for each GFI is if they are all feeding from seperate circuits?

>the only time you would need a separate neutral for each GFI is if they are all feeding from separate circuits?
That is correct. But that is because separate circuits need their own (line-side) neutrals by Code. This is not a technical requirement for a GFCI to operate.

However, the load side current must not be diverted anywhere. In other words, if you cross your load-side neutral with any other neutral, the GFCI will trip. And if any load on the GFCI is not hooked to the load-side neutral of that same GFCI, then when that load is activated, the GFCI will trip.



[This message has been edited by Dspark (edited 07-10-2001).]

There was a time when GFCI's first came into the market, and were required by the NEC, that separate neutrals were required to prevent nuisance tripping.