GFCI tripping any ideas?

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JimMarshall

JimMarshall

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Jun 5, 2017
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Oil City PA
Woke up this morning and my VSP was off.
Breaker was tripped, and won’t reset.
Threw my robot in the pool for some circulation and went to work when it became apparent that it wouldn’t be simple. Any tips or tricks of what to look for?
Planning when I get home to:
1: Attempt a reset again
2: Ensure all other electrical items (heater) in the pool are deenergized and attempt a reset there to ensure that it’s not any of the other equipment

3: disconnect the pump wiring at the pump and attempt to reset the GFCI to try and isolate the issue to the pump

4: disconnect the pump wiring at the GFCI breaker to isolate the issue to either the wiring or the breaker.

anything else I should be doing or looking at?
 
Sounds like you have a good plan. Just wanted to offer a reminder to push the breaker firmly off first in an effort to reset it. Many people forget in the haste and confusion of the blown breaker and just try to push it on, which it wont do.
 
I recently went through this. Only two conditions - you have an actual ground fault or the breaker is worn out. I experienced both as water was leaking into a pool light conduit, thankfully not from pool but rain. My breaker was 20 years old and would trip/not reset as I had reset it at least 50 times over the years.

Got new VS pump in the last 6 weeks and the breaker would trip like crazy and not reset. In that case it wasn't a fault. The breaker was bad. Had electrician troubleshoot and replace breaker. No trouble since.
 
spidey07 said:
I recently went through this. Only two conditions - you have an actual ground fault or the breaker is worn out. I experienced both as water was leaking into a pool light conduit, thankfully not from pool but rain. My breaker was 20 years old and would trip/not reset as I had reset it at least 50 times over the years.

Got new VS pump in the last 6 weeks and the breaker would trip like crazy and not reset. In that case it wasn't a fault. The breaker was bad. Had electrician troubleshoot and replace breaker. No trouble since.
Click to expand...

My pump is brand new last spring. Hoping that it is an issue with the breaker and not the pump
 
JimMarshall said:
My pump is brand new last spring. Hoping that it is an issue with the breaker and not the pump
Click to expand...

I'd hire an electrician to troubleshoot unless you want to replace breaker yourself as a troubleshooting step. I can do basic DIY eletrical stuff but not panel work. They replaced breaker with the panel hot!! They spent a good 2 hours troubleshooting. My new intelliflo VS pump basically exposed a weak link - the breaker. They don't last forever and every time they trip/reset their life goes down.
 
I made it through all my troubleshooting steps, and I can’t get the breaker to reset in the box without anything even hooked up to it. It’s obviously a bad GFCI breaker, but here’s the kicker, it’s barely a year old. I bought it may 18 last year when upgrading to my VS pump.
Hoping they might replace it for free or at least at discount, that thing was 140 bucks!
 
A power surge or lightning hit nearby could have easily fried it. June is time for both of those in the NE. We just had a bad storm roll through a while ago. Or just the fact that they don’t make anything like they used to.

For $140 it sounds like they gave you the good breaker that doesn’t trip randomly from the VS. there are two of them. Both are made by Seimens but one is labeled Pentair.
 
If it doesn’t randomly trip then it works for your pump. My Square D trips and everytime I think about upgrading it there always seems to be something more important to spend the money on and it stops doing it for a month. Then it happens 3 times in 3 days and I start thinking about it again.
 

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Newdude said:
If it doesn’t randomly trip then it works for your pump. My Square D trips and everytime I think about upgrading it there always seems to be something more important to spend the money on and it stops doing it for a month. Then it happens 3 times in 3 days and I start thinking about it again.
Click to expand...

it went all last season and never tripped once.
Tripped randomly this spring when I was opening the pool.
 
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