Both are permissible, so how to decide?

With the breaker it's more of a hassle to run to the panel to reset, especially if it's at a distance, even more so if you're wet and naked.
But I can't remember the last time I've seen a GFCI trip.

opinions anyone?

IMHO, it's a design issue, as both are NEC compliant. Also, it's a convenience thing, as you said regarding running and wet.

As to tripping, the one for my laundry circuit tripped a few weeks back...reason unknown. As an inspector, I 'trip' quite a few each day (hopefully).

A personal opinion of mine is a few McMansions that have a GFI in the powder room (first floor) that runs thru to a few other baths. But, that's a design issue!

The problem that I see with chaining GFI receptacles in several bathrooms is that inevitably someone will be using the bathroom that the reset button is in while I'm wet and naked in the corridor banging on the door because the bathroom that I was in is downstream of it.

"Murphy was an optimist"

A GFI receptacle is alot less cost than a GFI breaker.Although legal by code I would never recommend daisy chaining bath recepts.The last custom we did actually had two circuits for the master bath receptacles.

It's a tiny bathroom. 1 sink. I'm only putting 2 receps for convenience. They'll be the only things on the dedicated 20a, and I'm wiring them in parallel.

The 20a gfci breaker is already in the panel from somebody before me.

I've made it clear the penalty for dropping the hairdryer in the toilet is having to run up a flight of stairs into the garage to reset the GFCI. not to mention buying a new hairdryer plus a little .5 amp zinger.

or is it .05. Or is that DUI?

The funny thing is dropping the hairdryer in the toilet wont trip the GFI.

I would not expect it to trip the GFCI as I have never seen a hair dryer with a 3 wire cord. In the absence of an EGC in the hair dryer cord, there is no current path other than hot to neutral when you drop it into the toilet.

It should still trip the immersion detector in the plug. There is a 3 wire cord in a hair dryer but the 3d wire just connects to a ring in the barrel of the dryer. It is similar to a GFCI but it is looking for any current in that 3d wire from either line side conductor.

Yes, that is the purpose of the immersion detector, I was talking about the branch circuit GFCI protection. It is very unlikely that a two wire device will trip the branch circuit GFCI when the device is dropped in a toilet....unless the toilet is an all metal one like found in prisions.

as an aside here, if one does opt for a panel GFI breaker, and daisychain all the non-dedicated gfci required receptacles back to it, doesn't the length of said circuit's R factor start to influence that 5ma?

~S~

Nope.

The electronics sense a difference in current between the outgoing and returning conductors. As long as none of those sneaky little electrons find a way to leave the wire partway through the circuit, there will be no overall effect.

I have heard there is a maximum amount of connected wire you can have because of capacitive coupling but so far I haven''t seen that and I have some pretty long GFCI runs. The longest is THHN in EMT which is supposed to be a worst case scenario.

Greg, I am not sure that capacitive coupling is what you mean. In the case of extremely long runs of THHN there will be current leakage through the insulation of the wire to the ground which could add up to trip a GFCI. This can be mitigatted by going to a better insulation type like XHHW. But given enough length even it won't work. This really dosen't matter to much though because we have exceeded even the usual operation lengths of the circuit (volatage drop and it is better to place another panel to shorten the lengths of runs). I have not bothered to calculate what those lengths may be, if I had time I would. I just all stems from electricity takes all paths and even insulation is a path, just a mighty poor one.

Receptacles are cheaper and often far more convenient. There's little reason to go with a GFCI breaker unless it's a situation where a GFCI receptacle just isn't a practical solution.

As to trips... Mine trip routinely, when I leave extension cords on the ground in the rain.

hmm, well i never really liked the idea of gfci's anywhere near the weather. Maybe i've seen a little too much abuse, incidents where the line side could be compromised, missing covers, etc.

Usually, i'll start a 'rough out' with a service gfci under , or near the panel. I'll make single runs back to that gfci to all the non-dedicated gfci's. That way they can be parsed out into dedicated circuits in the future.

That's paid off a number of times for me on those 'don't know what i'm building 'til i get there'jobs i've had the good fortune to step into...

~S~