When GFCIs were first coming out in the NEC codes, was it common to see them at first? I ask, because my house was built between 1976-78 and surprisingly, there are no GFCI outlets or breakers anywhere. I suppose that the new code just wasn't accepted yet, but a relative's house in the same county built in 1978 has GFCI breakers for the baths and outside outlets.

Another thing I have noticed is my home has one 20 A circuit for kitchen lighting and counter outlets. Same with the bathroom. Shouldn't there be two 20 A circuits for each of these rooms?

I've also noticed that the outlets in some room are on the same circuit as those in other rooms. Example, the washing machine circuit also has a hallway outlet and 3 outlets in the adjacent bedroom on it. This is annoying when trying to vacuum and run the washer at once.

My house was built by a contractor for himself so I don't understand these things being overlooked.

Either the code was not adopted in the juristdiction or who ever wired it didn't have a clue what they were doing. I'm living in a house built in 93 and remodeled since then and still hasn't met any code since it was built. Both the local building officials and the "person(s)" doing the wiring failed.

I knew contractors who would pull out the GFCI breaker after the final when they first came out. I bet that breaker saw a lot of panels

Odds are, the house was originally wires with only one GFCI device, protecting the few locations that required it. The receptacle was likely placed in a laundry room or garage.

It's also likely that the device was removed and replaced with an ordinary one. Early GFCI's were rather easy to miswire, and had rather limited lifespans.

switches:

Gfretwell is down you way and may be a good source of some local 'lore' for that time period.

Until around 2002 the electric code was whatever the local AHJ said it was in Florida. Jurisdictions being 2 or 3 cycles behind was common and some were farther behind than that.
It would not be surprising that a house built in 78 was not built to the 75 code when GFCIs started showing up. Out in the hinterlands enforcement was spotty anyway.

There were also additional local rules in some places. It was this mish mash of local codes that prompted Florida to pass the Unified Building Code law. Now everyone is required to enforce the state code.

I thought about that too. However, the way the house is wired, it wouldn't be possible to get the outside and bathroom outlets on one circuit. The only outside outlet is on the same circuit as the living room outlets.

Were GFCI outlets common back in the 1970s? I really haven't see any until the early 80s.

I started electrical work around 1976 and I don't remember GFCI receptacles back then. I believe they came out late '70's early '80's around here. They were very big and came with a box extender. It almost looked like a "goof" plate. It stuck out of the wall about 1/4".

P/S LeGrand says they had a GFCI receptacle in 1971.
I suspect they were not really that prominent until they were mandated in the code. That is a change from the current process, where they put things in the code before they exist.

GFCI's were slow to be accepted. The opposition came froms a few different directions.

The first was scepticism over whether they really worked, or solved any problem that needed to be addressed. Politics played a role; already the "snub South Africa" movement was getting rolling, and the idea actually originated there. I remember the inventor going around with his daughter; they demonstrated the thing by dropping a plug-in radio into a bathtub with her in it.

There was also opposition from those who favored a different approach: low voltage. The low-voltage folks had just begun to see their products take off when the GFCI came on the scene.

The real debate that held things up was -no real surprise here- the debate regarding GFCI's on ungrounded circuits, perhaps as replacement devices. This brought into the fray all the grounde wire/ no ground wire, to rewire or not, older, smaller boxes, and the fuse vs. circuit breaker debate.

To be fair, the first 20 years of GFCI's featured plenty of unreliable models, and versions that were rather confusing to wire correctly.

It is also fair to say that there were plenty of appliances that leaked enough current to cause a GFCI to trip unnecessarily. Any kind of motor with brushes, any kind of arcing contact - even a low-voltage doorbell button - was likely to trip the GFCI. Plus, there were still plenty of products around (especially lights) that had the neutral bonded to the appliance case.

When I inspected buildings I used a small bottle of white auto touchup paint to mark the GFCI's so that I could find them in other locations. This was one way of finding the cheaters in New Haven, CT years ago!

Inasmuch as point of use protection is valid in the US, i would forward the European differentail system mitigates many electrical woes back to the circuit's source

they evolved systemic changes, while we entertained bandaids to our exiting system

~S~

I think we have gone over the top with GFCI protection. There are just so many cases where the likleyhood of a shock is really low or unlikely.
The latest is our recent requirment to require GFCI protection at all sinks within 1.5 meters of any sink.
Why? Before you jump to answer because of the water you need to remember electricity needs a fault path even to a wet person. The power still has to go through the person before there is a shock. A well bonded sink may carry power back to the neutral to trip an OC device but would you really get electrocuted in a kitchen if you stuck 1 hand in the water to pull the toaster out of it?
I doubt I would volunteer for that experiment but at the same time I am having a problem with the current path. from the toaster to the water. If the sink is bonded then from the water to the ground and neutral. The current then might be high enough to trip a regular breaker but what if the sink is plumbed with plastic? Then from the toaster to the water and then through you to where? If I was barefoot on my wood or lenoleum floor how does the electricity flow from me? To where? I have touched live wires and not gotten a shock if I am properly insulated and isolated.
It seems the only proof of hazard is an outlet near water.
I recently read a story that an electrical engineer claimed to his daughter that she could throw the radio in the tub and dad would not be injured like they show in the movies.
I can't remember of she ever tried it.