GFCI breakers in the shop?

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

I always do things to code. It makes it easier to pass inspections that way!

When I built my shop, I placed all my outlets about 50" above the floor in case I chose to lean a sheet of plywood up against the wall, I'd still have access to the outlet. When the electrical inspector came to inspect my rough-in, he said that normally a shop is considered a "garage" and I would be required to have GFCI protection on all the 120vac outlets but because my outlets were so high above the floor, he didn't think they would be necessary. I put them in anyway.

That's interesting, Ken. I did my outlets that way also - higher than normal.

Here in CA it doesn't matter how high you put them, they have to be on GFCI (in a garage). My house was built a long time ago and the outlets in the ceiling of the garage that the garage door openers plug into are not GFCI. I don't know if they would have to be today. Since I didn't touch them, they didn't fall into the inspection and I didn't ask (didn't want to point them out to the inspector).

Mike

[Malcolm McLeod]

... the outlets in the ceiling of the garage that the garage door openers plug into are not GFCI.

I'd be hard pressed to quote chapter & verse, but I believe the UBC allows 'dedicated appliance receptacles' to be exempt from GFCI-requirements. Door openers probably fall in this catagory. But, an AHJ inspector can basically red-tag, or pass, anything they want to on any given day.

[Rick Potter]

I recently had an electrician put in a new 20A 110V circuit in my garage, along with another new 40A 220V circuit. Both were for my plug in cars. The 110V had a GFCI at the plug, and it kept tripping every week or so. I noticed that the charger plugged in to this outlet has a built in GFCI, so I removed the plug and replaced it with a regular 20A plug. This solved the problem.

Apparently, more than one GFCI on a circuit can create problems?? I had an ongoing problem with an downstairs bathroom GFCI plug tripping the upstairs bathroom light off. Turns out they were daisy chained. When we changed the downstairs GFCI plug to only cover the one bathroom, and left the upstairs GFCI plug in, the problem went away. I assume this problem came about because the GFCI's were both added at different times over the years to a circuit that originally had none.

EDIT: I forgot to mention....My 10 year old shop has GFCI breakers on all 110V plugs, and have had no problems at all with them.

[Von Bickley]

Check with your electrical inspector. My inspector designated all the receptacles in my shop as dedicated wood working outlets. No GFCI receptacles or breakers in my shop and that is the way I want it. Retired electrician.....

[sean meltvedt]

I have 2 pole breaker gfci's living happy in my shop. This arrangement allows me to have 120 and 240 available at each drop location and could have been run with 12-3 romex (I ran conduit for my shop wall outlets.) I have not experienced a trip from any of my tools including the vfd for my 3hp CNC spindle, but I don't have a lathe to try-yet...........
happy sawdust

[Bruce Volden]

Please note, there are differing qualities of GFI's!
I just had 2 Smart Electrician GFI's @ my son's shop that needed replacing as they kept tripping!
Had him install a couple Hubbells and viola.
The original GFI's were about 1 week old!

Bruce

[Steve Peterson]

General purpose outlets in garage have to be GFCI, but DEDICATED OUTLETS don't. Think freezer, washer / dryer. Lucky for me when I built my shop in 1980, only outlets closest to door had to be GFCI. In our house had to rearrange some circuits, as t-12 light over vanity would trip GFCI EVERY TIME it was turned off

Can I assume that dedicated outlets must also be single plug outlets? I often see these in garage door opener outlets on the ceiling.

Steve

[Mike Henderson]

Check with your electrical inspector. My inspector designated all the receptacles in my shop as dedicated wood working outlets. No GFCI receptacles or breakers in my shop and that is the way I want it. Retired electrician.....

I would have put GFCI outlets even if they weren't required. I've had a few times when they saved me from a shock. They're so quick you don't feel a thing.

Just like the SawStop, you hope you never need the safety feature, but...

Mike

[John Lifer]

Check with your electrical inspector. My inspector designated all the receptacles in my shop as dedicated wood working outlets. No GFCI receptacles or breakers in my shop and that is the way I want it. Retired electrician.....

Yep! I've NONE in my shop. Don't want nor need any as I'm not washing down my saws. And It isn't a garage.

[Rollie Meyers]

GFCI's are required for ALL 120 volt receptacles in garages, outbuildings like sheds, shops, with NO exceptions, even if receptacles are installed for a garage door opener, or using receptacles in the ceiling for lights, GFCI's are still required, the exception for dedicated receptacles went away a number of NEC editions ago.

[Jim Laumann]

A couple of GFCI tidbits....

I've got two different flavors of GFCI outlets in my shop. Vintage 1 (2003) when I put up my building, and vintage 2 (2010) when I finished the interior (insulation, additional wiring, etc). My Jet 1221 lathe will pop the 2010 vintage GFCI's every time, but runs just fine on the 2003 GFCI's.

I wired in a ceiling mount heater (propane) last fall. Used a single outlet (non duplex) on the ceiling (12 ft) for it (dedicated circuit & breaker). The electrical inspector mandated I put some flavor of GFCI in for the heater, despite the fact there is no way to stand on the floor (assumed to be wet) and reach that heater / outlet. I had a spare GFCI breaker, so I put that in the panel, and the inspector was happy.

Wish I had known about the code change (Rollie - post # 25). Not hard to fix, just irritating.

[Rollie Meyers]

Elimination of the exception allowing GFCI protection to be be omitted for receptacles not normally accessible in garages & outbuildings occurred with the 2008 NEC.

There was a proposal to require GFCI protection for 240V receptacles in garages & shops for the 2017 edition NEC, but looks to apply to non dwellings only & then only applying to kitchens, bathrooms, & rooftops, suspect it's coming to residential in the 2020 NEC. Not really fond of the idea because A/C drives (VFD's) do not play well with GFCI's

[Charles P. Wright]

The only thing I couldn't do that I wanted to was to run 12/3 romex and put 2 120V circuits in a single run - need a separate neutral for each GFCI breaker.

12-2-2 makes that easier, still only one cable to pull but you have a black, white, red, white striped, and ground in the same cable.