ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area 12/3 kitchen

Will GFCI receptacles work in the 2 small appliance branch circuits if they share a 12/3 neutral?
C

Cindy,

They'll work if you pigtail them off the hot & neutral, but not if you try to protect downstream receptacle outlets off of the load side of one GFI. So for a multi-wire circuit, it's a chicken in every pot, er, no, I mean a GFI at every outlet.

Hope your Christmas was Merry.

Cliff

I'm not sure what amp-man means by his reply, but I think I understand his intent. I would like to add the following. If I can, draw a picture in your mind of what I would do, and hopefully that will help you. A GFCI "monitors" the difference between current flow on the hot and neutral, and when the difference becomes more than a few milliamps it will trip.
Given the above, I would take your 12/3 nm cable (black, red, white, bare), and land it in 2 gang box. Pigtail the neutral with (2) pigtails, and land one on each of the line sides of (2) GFCI receptacles. Then land the black on the line side of one GFCI, and the red on the line side of the other GFCI. Now, feed the other small appliance outlets from the load sides of those 2 GFCI's. This will give GF protection to every outlet on the load side of those receptacles. Hope it helps Cindy.
HMEL #688

And I think they both mean a 12/2 to the downstream recps. Use the 12/3 only as a homerun.

I haven't done this before and don't recall others doing it either. Why not? Seems like sharing the neutral is a good idea.

Cindy
A 12/3 to gfci is possible as amp-man pointed out, but I would be more inclined to use a 20 amp 2 pole gfci breaker, that way you would have the two required 20 amp small appliance circuits and they are gfcci protected, and you can run your 12-3.

To reiterate: 12-3 on the homeruns, downstream of GFCI's must be 12-2 or the GFCI's will perpetually nuisance trip...

The wirenut on the shared neutrals must be very well installed or the ol' "240V series" may wipe out some appliances.

Cindy,
Electure managed to say in one sentence what didn't say in several sentences. If I had it to say over again, I would say exactly what he said. Have a nice day.
HMEL #688