I rewired a simple circuit to accept a 5th receptacle. All five receptacles worked fine until I used an appliance and had difficulty removing the plug. Now two of the receptacles do not work, but the other three do work. What could be the reason why two receptacles do not work and three do work in a closed circuit. Shouldn't it be all or nothing?
Circuit rewired to accept 5th receptacle
receptacle
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You should never chain two GFCI circuits together. When you install a GFCI circuit, you should only ever chain standard outlets off of them. Multiple GFCI on the same circuit can cause each other to trip.
So yes, what you want to do is actually what you should do.
What you do need to do, however, is make sure you connect the new outlet to the LOAD terminals on the GFCI outlet. That will put the new outlet on GFCI protection.
You should also sticker the new outlets as GFCI protected.
See in the above how the duplex (standard) outlet is fed from the GFCI, NOT the main line.
And in case it's unclear- the 3 gfci in the pic are not chained - they are connected in parallel. Only the standard outlet is "chained" - or connected in serial.
Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) receptacles are similar to Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) receptacles, in that they both operate on the Line / Load idea. When connecting an AFCI receptacle, downstream devices are only protected if they are connected to the Load side of the device. If devices are connected in parallel using pigtails on the Line side, they will not be protected by the AFCI device.
Since connection-wise, AFCI and GFCI receptacles are similar. The answers to these questions can be useful in this situation as well.
- How can I add a GFCI breaker on two circuits with a shared neutral without rewiring?
- How do I install a GFCI receptacle with two hot wires and common neutral?
Basically, these devices only monitor the wires on the Load side of the device. Which means, anything upstream on the Line side doesn't really matter. Sharing a neutral should not be a problem, as long as it's done properly (e.g. don't share a Load side neutral, only share the Line side neutral before the device).
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Best Answer
If the the AC power wires are connected to the receptacle using poke-in type connections then it is the possible source of your problem.
The string of receptacles are wired in a string. The AC feed starts at one end and feeds the first. Then another run of wire daisy chains to the second receptacle. This repeats to the last one in the string.
If you are using the poke in style terminations for the wires do know that the poke in lock mechanism inside the receptacle is fabricated out of the same piece of metal as that which engages the ends that you inserted into the outlet. If you had difficulty pulling out a plug it may have deformed the metal contact in such way that the poke-in lock on one of the wires has disengaged the wire and is not longer making a connection. All the downstream outlets that depended upon that wire will no longer be powered.
It is also possible that the hard to remove plug caused an improperly installed poke-in wire to slip out with just the flex of the contact as you tried removing the plug.
If this is the likely description of your problem it may be necessary to replace the problem outlet.
Many here also consider the poke-in style of wire terminations on outlets and switches to be crap. It is far better to use the screws supplied on the side of outlets to connect the wires.