How To Test GFCI Receptacles

This is Paul Ferris with A-Action Realty Inspection Services, welcome to Plano, Texas in another episode of Things you should be doing as a homeowner but probably aren’t. Today I’m going to talk to you about ground fault circuit interrupter devices or you may know it as GFCI Outlet.

These are found in a home in wet damp areas but depending on when your home was built or where it was built you may not find it in all the wet damp areas on your home. So if you don’t I highly recommend having a licensed Electrician come and install some for you but before you do that you might want to test a few outlets to make sure that they are not on the circuit of a ground fault interrupter device and what I mean by that is, this outlet right here is also in the kitchen, in fact is right next to the sink but it does not look like this. So you may think oh this is not a ground fault interrupter device, however it is on the same circuit as this, so therefore is protected and sometimes builders will wire bathrooms together for instance and they only need to use one of these outlets to protect all the outlets in all the bathrooms. So what should you be doing with this ground fault interrupter device? Well you should be testing it monthly, that’s right, monthly. You don’t need to buy any special equipment, in fact every home has at least one testing device already and that is this, your finger. Each of these has two buttons on it or should have two buttons on it a reset button and a test button. So once a month you just want to hit the test button, the reset will pop out if it does not pop out therefore it will not reset then you’re going to have a problem. You need to call a licensed electrician to come out and replace it for you. Just to show you, I got a little tester here so we can see this outlet does have current to it. I’m going to push the test button and now we can see it does not. Same thing with this guy right here, he’s on the same circuit so just to show you, you can see that it is a live circuit, I’m going to come over here and push the test button and now this outlet has no power to it. Test these monthly, like and share this video and join us next time for another episode of Things you should be doing as a homeowner but probably aren’t. If this video was helpful, please like and share it. Next time you need a home inspection in Plano Texas, call on the A-Action Team at 972-572-4500.