I know how to wire a GFCI receptacle and all the things to go with it in doing so. But what I do not know is the following.
I understand the GFCI receptacle should be first in line to protect the load side going to other standard receptacles, but lets say you have 5 receptacles on a line in a room that has 2 on 1 wall a 1 on each other wall. How or what is the best way to find the first receptacle in line, so the others can be protected. Am I over thinking this? Is there a simple answer? Or do I have to take each outlet off, unwire each to find the firstvin line from the breaker?
Had a couple receptacles go bad, and have decided to replace all of them (30 total in my house and garage). Also want to install GFCIs in the circuits, just want to make sure I get them in line correctly.
Best Answer
There is no magic method. You disconnect an outlet and see which ones are still live, if any. You don't have to disconnect any that went dead when you did one of the others. When they are all dead, you have the most upstream outlet on this circuit in this room. If the circuit feeds multiple rooms, the problem becomes larger, but not different.
Be aware of - keep an eye out for outlets with different circuits top and bottom (generally switched one half for room lamps) they can be tricky to figure out if you don't look for them.
Another approach (NOT my favorite) would be to use GFCI breakers instead. Automatically most upstream, but also more expensive and needs to be for your particular breaker panel, rather than the generic GFCI you can put first in line and replace with another generic GFCI when it fails (they do fail.)