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John K · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Washington DC

A contractor (who knows little about electricity) is remodeling the sunroom in my house, which contained an outside GFCI outlet. During remodeling, all of the electric in the sunroom is temporarily off. When I went into the master bedroom/bath and turned on a light, the bedroom/bath circuit tripped and I am without electricity in the bedroom/bath.

Looking at the main circuit panel, all of the GFCI circuits are lined up one below the other. I must conclude that they are connected since the sunroom has no electric and turning on a light in the bedroom tripped that circuit.

Should all GFCI circuits be connected in the main panel? Why? If not, can I just cut the connection between the 3 GFCI circuits and have the bedroom/bath be on its own GFCI circuit, tripping only when there is cause to do so in the bedroom/bath? Thanks.

b · Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject:

They are not necessarily connected... I am a little fuzzy about how you know they are on the same circuit. If the sunroom was turned off and you had power in the bedroom to turn it on to trip, then I would surmize that they are not on the same circuit. Code says that bathrooms are to be on their own circuit and not tied in with other rooms. Seems the question to ask is why the circuit tripped when you turned on the light.

John K · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Washington DC

They are not on the same circuit. There are three separate GFCI circuits serving three parts of the house. But I suspect that in the main panel that the three GFCI circuits are somehow connected because when I flip a light switch in the bedroom, it trips. Nothing was wrong with the bedroom/bath until the contractor disabled the wiring in the sunroom. So, there are three separate GFCI circuits, but why is the bed/bath tripping unless it was somehow connnected to the other GFCI circuits?

b · Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject:

They shouldn't be tripping each other... how did the contractor "disable" the sunroom? If that is the only variable that is where I would start.