by kayakrguy » Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:21 am
WG,
I'm gonna try to answer your question about GFCI circuit wiring. I ASSUME you are going to have a GFCI receptacle as the FIRST receptacle in your circuit and the rest are to be regular receptacles.
I'm gonna do this step by step, and I hope it is clear.
First, you MUST use a 3 wire circuit for a GFCI system to work. The 3 wires are: The HOT wire (usually black) The NEUTRAL (usually white) and the GROUND (usually Green) You can, if you want, use other colors but BE CONSISTENT, e.g. yellow always used as HOT etc it makes things much easier
Second, All receptacles come with GOLD and SILVER and GREEN screws. You ALWAYS hook the HOT wire to the GOLD ,
THE NEUTRAL wire to the SILVER screw and the GROUND wire to the GREEN screw.
Start your circuit with the GFCI outlet. Wire the incoming HOT wire to the GOLD screw on the LINE end of the receptacle. Wire the incoming NEUTRAL to the SILVER SCREW and the Ground wire (may be bare or green) to the GREEN screw.
Next, wire the outgoing wire FROM the GFCI to the LOAD end GOLD an SILVER screws. The GROUND on the outgoing wire MUST be connected to the ground wire on the GFCI. You can do this a number of ways: 1) if you have a long enough piece of ground wire, connect it directly to the incoming ground wire at the top of the GFCI; 2) cut a piece of bare wire, connect it to the outgoing ground wire and then connect it to the incoming ground wire at the top of the GFCI.
Third, following the above, take the load wire black, white and green wires to the regular receptacles....attach per above on the top screws.
If you are going to continue to other regular outlets further along, then wire the bottom of the regular outlet the same way you did the GFCI and take that wire to the next outlet etc...
Remember: For GFCI's to work you must ALWAYS be sure the ground wires are connected all the way through the circuit. You MUST NOT ever reverse the hot and neutral wires on the gold and silver screws.
I hope that helps and if I have made a goof I hope people will correct me..
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