It was a beautiful Saturday morning, as I loaded the boat for a little fishing trip, when the phone rang, it was Bonnie, a Realtor friend of mine. She was upset about a buyer’s inspection on one of her listings, and wanted a second opinion. She said that there were 10 GFCIs in this house and the report stated that none were functional. With the boat in tow, I met Bonnie at the house.
The house was a 1956 three-story. The house had been well maintained and appeared to be in perfect condition. Houses from this era were built with two-prong outlets, instead of the three prong outlets we see today, because back then the house wiring did not require a ground wire. Later CFCI outlets were installed in the bathrooms, kitchen, garage and outside receptacles of this house. GFCI outlets offer protection from accidental electrocution in areas where water is present. GFCIs are three prong outlets, but can be installed in the place of a two-prong outlet, but the GFCI will not be grounded.
This is what fooled the home inspector to thinking the GFCIs did not work. A home Inspector uses a three-prong outlet tester, with a button to push to trip a GFCI for testing. What fooled the Home Inspector was the fact that the button on his tester uses the ground to cause the small short to trip the GFCI. Since there is no ground on the old two prong system the test button will not work. The GFCIs will have to be tested with the test button on the outlet it self. I tested all ten of the outlets this way and they all worked, Bonnie was happy and I went fishing. I have a saying, “all's well that ends with fishing”.
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