I have installed a GFCI in my bathroom, but my hall light keeps tripping it. What is causing this?
Question:For some reason my house was built with the bathroom and hall lights on the same circuit. I installed a GFCI (20 amp) for the bathroom, but turning on the hall light trips the GFCI and nothing works. What gives?
Answers:
some good answers...but...if your GFI was wired wrong, Nothing would work...lites, or the receptacle itself...u have a current (amperage) imbalance...which means your light fixture needs to be checked
maybe too much load
Remove the GFCI you have 2 selections LINE and LOAD . make sure you connect the GFI to the line side terminals and black goes to hot and white neutral. If these are reversed it will cause the imbalancement that the GFCI is too protect you from.You should not need to use the load side of the GFCI unless you have another plug down stream that needs protection Just leave the load side free of any wires. GOOD LUCK
Alright, the best answer I can give you is this.
First, you most likely crossed some wirs. GFI's test the voltage that passes throw it, as well as the voltage that returns on the grounded conductor, the white wire, and trip if there is an imbalance of .0005 volts. This is how they save lives.
Remove the GFI recepticle, and pigtail the wires.
By this, I mean, there should be two blacks, and two whites, get some scrap wire, you can buy some at a hardware store, and some wire nuts.
When you pigtail, you put the same colored wires along with another one under the wire nut, and make sure the connection is good and tight, Do this to both the black and white wires.
Then, the two bottom screws on the GFI, one goldish, the other silver, are the two line connections. Line means power in.
Put the black pigtail to the gold, and the white pigtail to the silver. The bare wire, grounding conductor, goes to the very bottom on the green screw.
Now, you will have a GFCI protected outlet, and the rest of the circuit will work just fine.
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