Unusual household wiring circuit

[Monkeyleg]

We have a guest bathroom at the very east end of the house. There's a ceiling light and light fixture over the sink, both of which are controlled by two wall switches. There are two outlets, one at either end of the counter. Neither are GFI. Each has a small table lamp plugged into it.

On the very west end of the house is the garage. On the wall that faces west is a GFI outlet. Into it is plugged the control for the underground sprinkler system.

The other night my wife remarked that the two little table lamps wouldn't turn on. I checked the two outlets, and there was no power. The wall light fixture and the ceiling light fixture worked, though.
 
I noticed later that the sprinkler system hadn't come on that morning. When I checked, the GFI breaker had tripped. I didn't think anything of it.

Yesterday the little table lamps worked. I also set the sprinkler control. (See where I'm going with this?).

This morning I found that the GFI had been tripped, and the sprinkler didn't come on. Tonight I noticed that the little table lamps wouldn't come on. I reset the GFI, the sprinkler control came on, as did the table lamps at the other end of the house.

I didn't think it was possible that someone would have wired two outlets on the opposite end of the house into the same circuit as the GFI for the sprinkler system in the garage, but they did! The two outlets in the bathroom are completely separate from any other circuits in this part of the house. In fact, that whole circuit is independent of anything I've found.

How and who wired this is scary.

[Bogie]

They "cheaped."
 
Yeah, right... If you have three outlets that require GFCI protection, only one of them needs to be an actual GFCI "with da switch" plug. And they don't have to be in the same place. My old house had the garage plugs on a basement bathroom circuit... Same logic. Personally, I'd save on the romex...

[Monkeyleg]

They "cheaped."
 
Yeah, right... If you have three outlets that require GFCI protection, only one of them needs to be an actual GFCI "with da switch" plug. And they don't have to be in the same place. My old house had the garage plugs on a basement bathroom circuit... Same logic. Personally, I'd save on the romex...

What? They ran over 50 feet of romex from the garage to the guest bath to save a couple of bucks on two GFI outlets?

[Jim147]

Depending on where your breaker box is located, they may have just grabbed that wire somewhere closer.

I plugged a shorted printer into my office outlet and popped the GFI in the kitchen. I was more then a little surprised.

jim

[Triphammer]

What? They ran over 50 feet of romex from the garage to the guest bath to save a couple of bucks on two GFI outlets?

Depends. Back in the early to mid 70's, GFIs were new & expensive - romex was cheaper. Are the kitchen outlets GFI?

[Monkeyleg]

The breaker box is in the garage, next to the sprinkler control. Also, the house was built in 1991.

There's at least one GFI in the kitchen, and it's not on the same circuit.

I replaced the light fixture above the bathroom mirror in April, right before my wife's mother and sister came to visit. I was surprised to find just a length of romex running to it. There was no junction box behind it. We've always had older homes, so I don't know if that's common in newer homes, or a sign of an amateur installation.

[KD5NRH]

Try this one; breaker box is in a closet off the garage, ~16 feet from the garage door opener.  There's one outlet in the garage on the back wall, ~12ft from the opener.  Some dingus ran the cord from the opener up through the (finished) garage ceiling, over to the back wall, punched down through the ceiling, put a plug on it and plugged it in.  They passed two unswitched junction boxes on the way, and took up half the duplex outlet for something that should be hardwired in, or at worst, put an outlet in the attic to plug it into.  Given the amount of wire involved, I would have run it straight to the breaker box and shelled out for one extra 15A breaker.  Maybe put an outlet next to it in the ceiling just for the heck of it.

[Harold Tuttle]

my garage GFIs have always been control for the outdoor outlets

Its really nice when an outdoor short turns off the freezer in the garage

in my old house the garage GFI controlled the main floor bathroom then the outdoor circuit

I replaced the bathrooms & the deck with their own GFI

I never saw any issues with daisy chaining GFIs

[brimic]

The electric-fu was weak in the guy who built my house- there are 5 different GFCI outlets on the same circuit- I'm not complaining.
What I am complaining about is the 15 amp outlets on 20 amp circuits. I didn't even notice until the outlet for my washing machine melted- I found 2 more after checking the rest of the house.

[mtnbkr]

The GFCI in our upstairs hall bathroom also controls outlets outside, in the foyer, and in the garage.  The upstairs bathroom is on the third floor.

Chris

[K Frame]

Search on my experiences with troubleshooting a GFCI at my house a few years ago. It was interesting.

And, when my house was built in 1979, Romex was about 17 cents a foot, or less.

A GFCI? They were fairly new, and about $80 a pop at that time. So yeah, running 50 feet of Romex could very well have been a LOT cheaper than wiring two or three separate GFCIs.

Oh, and it's likely that your sprinkler system has developed a short and that's why the GFCI is tripping.

[Monkeyleg]

I didn't realize that GFI outlets were that expensive years back.

If there's a short in the sprinkler system, it's intermittent. I love intermittent electrical problems.

I wonder if I need to flush the toilet to get the gas fireplace to ignite?

[Brad Johnson]

Sounds like the circuit for the far bathroom and your lights was also the closest run to feed the outlets for the sprinkler.  When they installed the GFCI they ran it in series rather than tapping off the circuit and discrete GFCI coverage of the sprinkler outlet.

If you feel the need you can switch to discrete protection easily.  Pull the plug and nut the wires for the rest of the circuit directly to the feed, installing a short pigtail to feed the GFCI outlet.  I wouldn't do that, though, unless you intend to install discrete GFCI protection at the wet locations.

Also, it's possible that dust or critters have gotten into the GFCI plug and contaminated the contacts, causing just enough shorting to trigger it.  GFCI outlets are relatively inexpensive.  Try swapping the plug for a new one and see if the problem goes away.

Brad

[Monkeyleg]

Thanks, Brad. I'm guessing that the GFI outlet was something the previous owner put in, and not the contractors. I'd have to look at the wiring going into the outlet to see if it looks like an amateur did it.

[Hawkmoon]

What? They ran over 50 feet of romex from the garage to the guest bath to save a couple of bucks on two GFI outlets?

Roger that.

[Monkeyleg]

Actually, they ran probably 100 feet of romex to save on four outlets. I just checked the master bath, and both of the wall outlets next to the sinks in there are on the same circuit as the garage and the guest bath.

Well, I guess the bright side is that, if I should grab the charger for my electric razor from the wall outlet while my other hand is in a sink full of water, my sprinkler control won't get zapped. 

[K Frame]

"Actually, they ran probably 100 feet of romex to save on four outlets. I just checked the master bath, and both of the wall outlets next to the sinks in there are on the same circuit as the garage and the guest bath."

and

"When they installed the GFCI they ran it in series rather than tapping off the circuit and discrete GFCI coverage of the sprinkler outlet."

That, to me, means that it was planned when the house was built, and is exactly how my house is built, as well. I've seen that in wiring style in many houses since GFCI's became mandatory for exterior sockets and bathrooms sometime in the 1970s. They didn't become required in kitchens until the 1980s sometime.

In my home, built in 1979, the exterior socket on the back patio, the socket in the first floor half bath, and the sockets in the two baths on the second floor are the ONLY things covered by that GFCI. Nothing else in the house.

I remember that GFCIs remained quite expensive relative to wire cost through most of the 1980s.

[Brad Johnson]

Yeah, the ran the drop for that leg over to the wall outlet, then went on with it to wire the rest of the outlets in the leg.  Probably had a regular outlet at that location, wired in series, that was simply replaced with the GFCI when they put in the sprinkler system.

Brad

[Monkeyleg]

That's just weird.

[CNYCacher]

You stated that the GFCI was in proximity to the main breaker.  So, wire was going to be running from that location to the bathrooms already.  Sounds like they placed the GFCI at the start of the circuit instead of in the first outlet box of the circuit over in the bathrooms.  I don't see how its any extra wire at all, since the bathroom outlets needed to be wired anyway.  It is actually a pretty smart idea especially if they wanted a GFCI outlet in the garage as well.  The only downside to it is if the thing trips you need to go to the garage.  In a world where GFCIs were $70, I could see myself doing the same thing.  Now they run around $15 though.  So if you wanted to relocate to your bathroom, you just need to remove the one in the garage and either just nut together the wires in that box, or put a standard receptacle in there.  Then, replace one of the outlets in the bathrooms with a GFCI.  It has to be the outlet that is first on the circuit though.  So pull out one receptacle and see which outlets still have power.  If none have power, you found it.  if one has power, that's the one.  If two have power, it's one of those.  if three have power, you chose poorly.

[Monkeyleg]

You stated that the GFCI was in proximity to the main breaker.  So, wire was going to be running from that location to the bathrooms already.  Sounds like they placed the GFCI at the start of the circuit instead of in the first outlet box of the circuit over in the bathrooms.  I don't see how its any extra wire at all, since the bathroom outlets needed to be wired anyway.  It is actually a pretty smart idea especially if they wanted a GFCI outlet in the garage as well.  The only downside to it is if the thing trips you need to go to the garage.  In a world where GFCIs were $70, I could see myself doing the same thing.  Now they run around $15 though.  So if you wanted to relocate to your bathroom, you just need to remove the one in the garage and either just nut together the wires in that box, or put a standard receptacle in there.  Then, replace one of the outlets in the bathrooms with a GFCI.  It has to be the outlet that is first on the circuit though.  So pull out one receptacle and see which outlets still have power.  If none have power, you found it.  if one has power, that's the one.  If two have power, it's one of those.  if three have power, you chose poorly.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It's still weird to have no power at two outlets because of an outlet on the opposite side of the house. GFI or not, I doubt any contractor would have done that in the 1930's, and that's the kind of wiring I'm used to.

[K Frame]

"Probably had a regular outlet at that location, wired in series, that was simply replaced with the GFCI when they put in the sprinkler system."

Depending on the age of the house (post 1975 when GFCI was required in bathrooms) I doubt it.

Unless you're trying to minimize use of very expensive GFCIs on circuits that don't get much use, it makes no real sense to chain them together like that.

I've never seen that wiring configuration in a house that was built pre GFCI.

In older houses the bathroom sockets would likely either have been tied in with the ceiling lighting in the bathroom or with the sockets in the bedroom or other rooms

[Harold Tuttle]

it mondo fun when the tripped outlet is buried behind a storage rack in the garage

I'm seeing, in new construction, gfi breakers in the main box

[Brad Johnson]

I've never seen that wiring configuration in a house that was built pre GFCI.

Daisy chaining outlets along a circuit is commonplace. Has been for many decades.

Brad

[K Frame]

"Daisy chaining outlets along a circuit is commonplace. Has been for many decades."

Sockets that are in proximity and in a horizontal (same floor) progression, such as around the perimeter of a room, or on a wall common to two rooms, yes.

Read the description of Monkeyleg's situation, and mine, again, and you'll see that horizontal proximity is NOT the determining factor of why they're chained together.

If I'm reading his description correctly, the sockets that are protected by the GFCI are chained together VERTICALLY over at least two floors in a manner in which proximity doesn't seem to be a consideration, either.

In my house, my GFCI protected sockets are chained together over THREE floors. Same, I think, with Mtnbkr's house.

I know for a fact that in my house the bathroom sockets are the only ones that are chained together vertically. All other sockets are chained together in horizontal proximity.

I'd bet SERIOUS money that the same is true of Mtnbkr's house and Monkeyleg's house.

Vertical chaining of outlets that are related only by purpose of application (wet use locations) is a dead giveaway that that circuit run was purposely installed as a GFCI-protected circuit, in Monkey Leg's case, most likely when the house was originally built, or when it was substantially remodeled (although that would have probably required a full gut remodeling).