Electrical GFCI – Is It OK to Wire Load on the Line Side of GFCI?

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I am installing a GFCI that will be feeding additional outlets in another room. There are at least 5 more outlets and I suspect this new outlet is the very first in the run. Some of these load outlets do not need to be protected, while others are already protected by another GFCI. In order to avoid the hassle of potential problems with daisy chaining multiple GFCIs, is it ok to simply wire the load onto the same terminals as the line on this new GFCI?

Best Answer

Absolutely fine.

Pigtail the hot and neutral line wires to connect GFCI line, incoming wires and outgoing (not protected) wires.

Even if the receptacle supports two wires per terminal, pigtails have some advantages:

  • You get a bit more wire length to work with when installing the receptacle - limited by the pigtail rather than shortest of the two wires
  • It guarantees that if you remove the GFCI, you will still have hots & neutrals paired properly. None of which should be an issue if you handle everything properly, but it just makes it simpler (at least in my mind, from a little experience and a lot of reading from others here).

You can also have protected receptacles on the GFCI load. But once you have both line and load, it becomes extra important to label the protected receptacles.

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