Ground fault vrs circuit breaker?

[BLACKJACK]

Whats the purpose of having both a ground fault and a circuit breaker on an electical plugin circuit?

Heres my problem. I have an electric smoker, in the past I've had problems where it pops the ground fault on my garage, so yesterday I thought I'd try it on my new shed. Same thing, it pops the ground fault. Then I ran a extension cord and plugged it in inside the shed and started watching the circuit breaker to see if popped. No, but no smoke was coming out. Come to find out, the circuits inside the shed also have a ground fault wired into one of the plugins - how come? If too much juice is flowing, it should pop the circuit breaker, but instead it pops the ground fault??! Do you think its a problem with the circutis or the electric element on the smoker?

[BIG DS]

Smoker

[Jeremy airjer W]

The simplest way to describe it is a cicuit breaker is designed to shut off the flow of electricity when the demand exceeds the breakers rating. A ground fault is looking for a difference in pressure, think of the power and nuetral socket in the outlet as a scale if the scale tips one way of the other, like a short, the ground fault trips. so a ground fault doesn't care how much current is going through it.

There is probably something wrong with your smoker.

[fishin789]

what else do you have hooked up to the same circuit? if you have to much running on the same circuit it will pop.The outlet in my garage is connected to the ground fault in the bathroom and if someone is running a hair drier at the same time the circuit will pop. If all you have on the circuit running is your smoker you either have a bad ground fault plug or something is wrong with your smoker.

[JohnMickish]

Article 210.8 of the National Electrical Code states that "All 125volt, single phase 15 and 20 ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in (1) thru (8) shall (means must) have ground-fault circuit-interupter protection for personnel.

(2) "Garages, and also accessory building that have a floor located at or below grade level and not intended as habitable rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas and areas of similar use."

(3) "Outdoors."

So now you know why they are there, let me explain the difference and why you need them.

All a circuit breaker or fuse does is trip when the current flowing thru it is more than it's rating. Thats keeping it simple.

A GFCI on the other hand does not care or know how much current is flowing thru it. What it does is sense the difference between the current on the "hot" wire and the "neutral" wire. Usually when there is a difference it is because the current is going thru YOU then to ground. They are designed so when there is a difference it trips and stops the flow of electricity. A GFCI is designed to trip at between 4-6 milli-amps. It can take as little at 10 milli-amps to put your heart into fibrilation. (that's bad ) Please never take one out and replace it with a regular recepacle. They are there for a reason.

Now to your problem, sometimes resistance type appliances (like your smoker or a car block heater) can have high inrush current and trick the GFCI. Install a high quality industrial grade GFCI and you will be in the clear, presuming the smoker is electrically sound.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Thats what I meant.

[sparkyaber]

mnfishingguy must be a fellow sparky!

My guess is that something is wrong with the smoker- probably a bad cord. I see it all of the time at work- bad cords on tools triping GFI's. Don't hate GFI's, they are there to save your life.

Arc fault breakers on the other hand.................

mnfishingguy knows what I am talking about

[JohnMickish]

I've put in a few arc-faults but never been around to replace them. Are they kind of like when the GFCI's where new? Are you having alot of false trips on them?

Oh, and yes, I'm a sparky too, working at the airport on lighting for the new runway.

[BLACKJACK]

Thanks mnfishingguy! Thats the explaination I was looking for! Don't worry, I have no intention of taking out the GFCI receptacle. And since my shed is less than two years old and I tried two different circuits and both of them popped the ground fault, I'll assume its the smoker. They wouldn't put in cheap, inadequate ground faults, would they??!

Its a charbroil smoker, I'll see if I can find some info on them on the web, maybe get a replacement element.

[sparkyaber]

I have seen tons of false trippings- always a motor- from a vaccum to even ceiling fans. I am glad I got to wire my home on the '99 code.