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Re: GFI laws
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To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
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Subject: Re: GFI laws
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From: cbay at jeppesen_com (Charlie Bay)
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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 07:27:50 -0700 (MST)
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In-Reply-To: <199603112039.PAA25563 at looney_actwin.com> from "Aquatic-Plants-Owner at ActWin_com" at Mar 11, 96 03:39:02 pm
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 11 Mar 96 10:58:08 PST
> Subject: Re: electrical safety
>
> >KB Koh <KB_Koh at ccm_ipn.intel.com> wrote:
> >What is that Ground-Fault-Interrupt? Is it the same as ELCB (Earth Leakage
> >Circuit Breaker). Over here it is required by law for every home to have it.
> nguyenh at nosc_mil (Hoa G. Nguyen) responded:
> Sounds like they are the same device. In my city, as of 8 years ago when I
> bought my house, GFI was required for the bathroom outlet circuits in new
> houses only. I don't know the current law.
I don't know if this gets through, but here goes... :-)
As for laws, it varies state-to-state. In Colorado, any outlet
within 10 feet of a water source (bathtub, sink, etc) must be
GFI protected (new and old homes). This law is under the assumption
that most electric hair-dryers and electric razors have six-foot cords.
I think this is rather silly, because like KB Koh points out, it's
really easy to protect the entire house by putting it at the entry
point to the house. Or, you could protect each circuit to the house
so one trip doesn't shut down all the circuits. I'll GFI _all_
outlets in the "dream home" when I build it (you never know where you'll
end up putting that fish tank! :-); but if you don't want to do your
whole house, I do think that any outlets around the fish tanks (any
devices in our fish tanks) should absolutely be on a circuit that is
GFI protected. The GFI outlets are $8 compared to $.50, but you can
put a zillion $.50 outlets on the same circuit _after_ the GFI.
--charley Fort Collins, Colorado USA
cbay at jeppesen_com