I keep seeing people put GFCI breakers on circuits that already have GFCI outlets

Been to three service calls this month where someone doubled up on GFCI protection. The breaker trips and the outlet trips and nobody can figure out which one is actually the problem. Kitchen counter circuits in older houses seem to be the worst for this around Columbus. How do you usually explain this to homeowners who want both?

3 comments

3 Comments

luna_wells571mo ago

Feel your pain on this one, had the exact same mess last week in a kitchen remodel.

brown.susan1mo ago

@luna_wells57 welcome to the club, contractors never line anything up right.

wrenh7913d ago

The whole "belt and suspenders" thing doesn't work with electricity, but try telling that to a homeowner who just paid for a kitchen rewire. The real mess is downstream protection, like a fridge or disposal that keeps tripping and nobody knows which device to reset first, especially when they're buried under the counter. A simple rule I use is that the breaker protects the whole circuit at the panel, and the outlet protects its own location, so you only ever need one or the other, not both. Remind them that doubling up just adds more points of failure and confusion, and it's honestly a waste of a GFCI breaker on an outlet that already does the same job.