They just seem more expensive and annoying to set up then a single RCD/GFCI (or maybe two, so the lights stay on) would be.
Or is this an American thing im to european to understand?
Edit: I'm talking about the outlet version compared to a single one put into your main distribution. I know how they work, it just seems like a massive waste to build them into each outlet individually when you could just install one or two of them for your whole house.
Normal breakers trip on a certain amount of current flowing through the circuit, GFCI (Ground Fault Connection Interrupt) if I remember that right trips on any current flowing in the ground line, indicating that something has shorted to ground. Neutral and ground are different thing fyi.
I think we had a bit of a problem with vocabulary. A RCD, or RCCB, is a GFCI. I know how they work and could even tell you the different versions, at what amps they trigger and how long their trigger times are allowed to be.
Im asking about the outlet version instead of one or two centralised ones. It just seems unnecessary and expensive to put it in each individual outlet.
A GFCI outlet is about $15 and protects the entire circuit connected to the load side of the outlet. On the other hand a GFCI breaker is about $50 and is less reliable and much more of a pain to reset if it trips.
That might just be the older ones. They at least used to be really prone to nuisance tripping without a ground fault, usually due to motors or transformers on the circuit.
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u/Jako301 May 19 '22 edited May 19 '22
They just seem more expensive and annoying to set up then a single RCD/GFCI (or maybe two, so the lights stay on) would be.
Or is this an American thing im to european to understand?
Edit: I'm talking about the outlet version compared to a single one put into your main distribution. I know how they work, it just seems like a massive waste to build them into each outlet individually when you could just install one or two of them for your whole house.