I have a house with a Square D QO Load center breaker box, circa 1973.
Over the years there's been some remodeling done and some circuits added. Everything was done to whatever code was in effect at the time.
What I have now is the following – every breaker in the panel is 20A (and yes all of the electrical wiring in the house is 12ga) except for 2 that are going to the most recent remodel bit which is a finished basement bedroom (those are 15A)
At some point the garage breaker was replaced with a Square D "yellow test button" GFCI breaker most likely because a prior owner moved the washer and dryer from an upstairs closet (which obviously housed a stacked unit) to the garage. I am not unhappy with this as I prefer standard appliances not weird small stacked stuff that had super expensive repair parts. In addition to the washer and dryer there is a refrigerator on the garage circuit along with an APC UPS that feeds networking gear used for the internet connection and wifi in the house.
The two 15a breakers going to the basement bedroom are "green test button" AFCI breakers
All other breakers are standard breakers.
The only other 2 GFCI outlets in the home are in the kitchen next to the sink.
This is a vacation house in a resort community and we rent it out. We visit it at least once a month. When we were out there last week I discovered one of the GFCI outlets had failed, and a secondary outlet that comes off that outlet was also dead. (mechanical failure of the test button causing the outlet to be dead)
I was unable to find a new replacement GFCI outlet of the correct color and amperage for what passes for hardware stores there. And after driving 30 minutes to the closest Home Depot I discover they are out of stock as well. This kind of thing is not uncommon out there and it is typical that I have to buy parts in advance from the city I live in before visiting. So I replaced the outlet with a standard outlet.
Now I am trying to decide how best to repair this setup. The first obvious answer is to replace the outlet with a GFCI. But I really dislike that because my experience with GFCI outlets is that they are cheaply made mass-market devices that sometimes nuisance trip, and they introduce additional mechanical failure points.
The next obvious answer is to replace the breaker with the outlet is on with a modern GFCI/AFCI combo breaker (purple test button). My concern with that, however, is that the kitchen refrigerator is on that circuit, as well as a natural gas range. There is also a microwave oven but that is on a separate circuit, as is a dishwasher. The advantage of leaving the breaker as is, is that if the GFCI in the wall triggers it won't kill the power to the refrigerator and range.
I'm also wondering if I should take the opportunity to while at the same time as replacing that breaker I would replace the existing "yellow test button" breaker with a combo "purple button" breaker. It has nuisance tripped on me a few times during power outages (for whatever reason the utility – Pacific Power – seems to really have terrible power quality on recovery from power outages) however it is feeding garage outlets that have motors on them (refrigerator compressor, washer/dryer, hand drill, weed wacker and a couple of other 1/4hp inductive motors that run a bench grinder and buffing wheel.)
And yes I have read all of the propaganda that the breaker companies have fixed all of the problems with nuisance tripping but it is very difficult to find testimonials and field feedback that are current. That's really what I'm asking about.
Best Answer
FYI that means you can't do your own electrical work and must hire an electrician, in nearly all jurisdictions. Many will allow "trivial" work to be done by landlord or tenant, such as swapping receptacles or switches for aesthetic/GFCI reasons, or changing light fixtures. (although this forum is thick with cases where those tasks were not trivial at all, lol!)
For amperage, 15A receps are fine on 20A circuits as long as there are 2 or more sockets on the circuit. NEC 210.21(B).
This is notched into Code for precisely this reason - to reduce the SKUs a store or electrician must carry. You only need a 20A recep if you have an appliance with sideways neutral, which means it's too big to use a 15A circuit. We're talking BIG microwaves or really old window A/C's. For a tenant, tough beans.
Wow. Well, avoid the daylights out of amazon.com. It's thick with counterfeits.
Downgrading the protection means you absorb all the liability if an injury occurs. Your insurer will probably even back out on those grounds.
Well, aside from the blatant counterfeits on Amazon, you generally have 2 tiers: "builder grade" and "Spec grade". Builder grade is for when it only has to work until you clear escrow :) Spec grade are for when it's your building and you'll be responsible for total life-cycle costs.
You can guess which one we like around here.
A GFCI recep has exactly the same failure points as a GFCI breaker. Point for the breaker, they tend to be made by Tier 1 manufacturers like Schneider, GE, Siemens. Point against them, the breaker is a rather small package, especially a 3/4" wide QO.
I have a "QO" GFCI breaker I am ripping out, because the darn thing won't tell me if it was a GFCI or overcurrent trip. (the newest ones can, but their UI is very, very balky). For half again the price of anyone else's breaker they oughta be able to afford a 1 cent LED.
Yup, exactly. You should do everything in your power to keep refrigerators off of GFCI and AFCI. I'm a huge fan of EMT metal conduit, which basically moots AFCI; and grounded fridges do not benefit from GFCI in any way. That's a tough sell for a fridge in a garage or basement because all receps there are required to be GFCI, but your AHJ is able to grant a variance for a dedicated 1-socket/simplex "Fridge only" outlet.
If it's a dedicated circuit for the fridge, that's ideal; however if a circuit has only one socket, socket and breaker must match.