Originally posted by: ArJuN
Hmm...all your replies make me just want to call the landlord and make him deal with it. And sorry about the hot and neutral...my chemistry classes are getting to me. Though before I call him, I'm going to crack open the outlet and see how it's wired up. I'd rather handle this problem myself if I can since I enjoy things like this.
Anyone think it can just simply be the ground (neutral) hooked up to the switch? And if so...if I just ground the actual outlet at the outlet, theoretically it should be on the whole time. Am I even making sense? Lol, the all-nighter was a bad idea...
Some of your comments suggest to me you don't understand how it is supposed to work, so it could be a bad idea to re-design it yourself.
First, I agree that there does not seem to be any good reason to control a GFCI with a wall switch. On the other hand, unless a code specifically forbids it, there also is no good reason why it can't work properly.
The reason many codes specify that the GFCI must be the FIRST device in the circuit is that almost all of them are designed for two purposes. The first is that it provides GFCI functions for itself. A GFCI monitors the currents in both the hot and neutral lines, which ALWAYS should be exactly the same. Any imbalance (in excess of a tolerance of some milliamps - someone above said over 30 mA) is taken to mean that some current is leaking out of the circuit and could harm a person, so the device shuts of the current. The second function is to extend this protection to other outlets on the circuit. Almost all GFCI's have two terminals for input (Hot plus Neutral) and, of course, Ground and an additional terminal for output of the Hot line. This output terminal is used as the supply for further devices down the chain. All of those lower-down devices are within the protection of the GFCI. So, in a bathroom for example, you install one GFCI as the first device, with all other devices (outlets and lights, etc) in the circuit fed from the output terminal. All the "others" can be plain cheaper devices, but they all have GFCI protection. However, the GFCI cannot protect anything installed in the circuit ahead of it - it does not operate as a parallel device in that sense.
In any circuit, ALL of the control devices (breakers, switches, anything) should be installed ONLY in the Hot line, and that should always be the black lead. The Neutral (white) line should never have a break in it. So in your case the switch SHOULD have been installed in the black Hot line and thus feed the Hot terminal of the GFCI. Definitely do NOT connect that to Ground - you'll get an instant spark and a lot of dark! More importantly to me, the fact you considered connecting something to Ground IF it were wired in a particular (and wrong, it happens) way tells me you don't understand 120 VAC house wiring. It is not like a car.
In a normal household circuit there are three wires running in the cable and entering a device box. One is Hot, normally black but sometimes red or blue. One is Neutral, and it completes the circuit taking current from Hot back to the Neutral bus at the breaker panel. The third is the Bonding or Ground wire, normally bare. Its sole function is to provide a true zero-voltage connection to earth ground and enough current-carrying capacity to handle a full overload in the event of a short circuit, thus forcing the breaker (in the Hot line only) to trip and stop the current supply. In the USA and Canada (and many other places) we use a system called "Grounded Neutral" for houses. The power coming in from the transformer is on three wires. Think of them as the two opposite ends and the middle of the transformer's secondary winding. Between either end and the middle you get 120 VAC. Between one end and the other you get 240 VAC. The middle terminal is called Neutral; the two ends are both called Hot. Both at the transformer and at your breaker panel the Neutral line is connected to a solid Ground line to the earth - very often just the water pipe entering your house. It happens that the same Ground source is used as the true Ground for the bare Bonding leads in the house branch circuits. So in your panel it looks like they are the same because they actually are connected together. But they are not the same, and must be kept separate. In the branch circuits, the white Neutral lines carry the return current back to the panel. Because they have current flowing and the have a non-zero resistance, the Neutral leads actually have a non-zero voltage on them at the outlet box end, even if their connection point at the panel's Neutral bus is is a zero volts (compare to Ground). The bare Bonding lead, on the other hand, should NEVER have a current flowing in it unless there is a breakdown. That way it is a safe reliable zero voltage point. So, at an outlet box, if you connect the bare lead and try to use it as if it were Neutral, the circuit will work. But you have just set up a potentially dangerous situation you may not detect. Use Neutral (white) for current in the circuit. Use Bonding or Ground (bare) ONLY for true Ground protection with no current normally present.
A common way to control an outlet from a switch is to bring the supply cable from the panel to the switch box first. Hot supply comes to a switch terminal; the other terminal becomes the switch output to the hot (black) lead of the piece of cable going out to the outlet mounting box. The two white leads are joined with a wire nut to establish the Neutral line connection to the outlet. The two bare bonding leads are twisted together tightly to ensure good electrical contact, then fastened to the box's Ground screw to ensure the box itself is grounded. At the box containing the outlet, the bonding lead is connected to its Ground screw, and the Hot and Neutral lines are connected to terminals on the outlet device.
By common convention, the outlet's terminals are color-coded with brass for Hot, silver for Neutral. A Green screw is Ground. If that is not apparent, there is another important convention. Mount the outlet device with its three holes in a triangular pattern so that the round (or U-shaped) Ground hole is pointing downward. When you look at it from the front, then, the slot on the UPPER LEFT will be a bit larger and it is NEUTRAL. The upper RIGHT slot (smaller) is Hot. Note that this means that any properly-polarized plug on the end of a cord will be set up with one blade wider than the other connected to the Neutral side of the load, and the Hot is the narrowed blade. When you plug it in, you cannot do it backwards; the Neutral line on the load cannot get connected to the Hot side of the outlet. The item you plugged in (for example, a lamp or a vacuum cleaner) should be set up so that its control devices (like switches) are in the Hot side of its internal circuits.
The other common alternative is to bring the supply line first to the box for the outlet. A second piece of cable runs out to the switch box. At the outlet box, bonding wires are connected as before and the supply's white (Neutral) connected to the outlet's Neutral terminal. The supply's Hot, however, is connected only to the black Hot line going out to the switch. At the switch, black (Hot supply) and white are connected to the two switch terminals. As a result, this white is no longer used as Neutral. It has become the Switched Hot output from the switch. Back in the outlet box, this white lead goes to the Hot terminal of the outlet fixture. So in this box, the two whites have different functions and that can look confusing! If you want other outlets or light fixtures controlled by the switch, you connect their Hot (black) leads to this Switched Hot line from the switch. Another very common option, though, is to arrange to have this outlet device always on independent of the switch, and have only the downstream devices (light fixtures) controlled by the switch. To do this you connect the supply line's black Hot lead to BOTH the outlet device's Hot terminal AND the Hot lead out to the switch. The Switched Hot (white) lead then connects to the Hot (black) lead(s) of only the cable(s) leaving this box to go to the rest of the circuit. ALL of the Neutral (white) lines (except, of course, the white that really is a Switched Hot) are joined together, including a short lead to the outlet's Neutral terminal.
Now, look at the new situation - the device is not a plain duplex outlet, but is now a GFCI with three terminals. If you set up the circuit the first way, with power to switch box first and then on the the GFCI, the only power source to the GFCI and any following devices is switched. But if you do it the other way - power to GFCI box first -you can do everything properly. Hot from the panel goes ONLY to the GFCI's input Hot terminal. Neutral from the panel joins all of the other Neutral lines leaving the box, plus the short lead to the GFCI Neutral terminal. To supply Hot to all of the rest of the circuit you join them to the GFCI's output terminal. This includes the black Hot lead out to the switch. The white Switched Hot coming back from the switch connects to the black leads going out to any of the devices you want controlled by the switch, like a light fixture. If you have additional outlets that always need to be on mounted in other boxes, their hot black leads simply connect to the GFCI's output Hot terminal.
In my bathroom I have an additional complication with an easy solution. Supply from the panel comes first to the box with a GFCI in the wall near the sink. A cable runs from there to a switch. Switched power to the light fixtures goes out from the GFCI box. Although it is possible to do it, there is no second outlet box fed directly from the GFCI box. The wrinkle is that the switch box is a double box containing both a light switch (no complication there) and a timer to control an exhaust fan. The cable to supply the fan comes out of the switch/timer box. The timer itself uses power and hence needs a Neutral line to return current to the panel through the GFCI box. That means the white line in the cable from GFCI box to switch box is already assigned to being a true Neutral and cannot be hijacked to functioning as a Switched Hot return for the lighting part. So that one cable from GFCI box to switch box is a 14/3 cable containing a third (red) line that is used for the Switched Hot return.
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