Outlet height

According to the NEC section 210.52 it's not 48" it is 66" (5-1/2 ft.). All outlets within the 12 ft. maximum spacing code must also be below this 66" mark to be considered part of the standard spacing in a dwelling unit.

What kind of room are you doing this work in?

garage. I wanted my outlets a little higher off the floor for plugging up tools such as table saw, etc. I installed the top of my boxes at 48 inches. It is well below 66 so I guess I am ok?

For a garage the only outlet requirement is that any duplex receptacles under the 66" have to be GFI protected. Other than that, you're free to install as many or few as you wish, spaced out to your liking.

I was just told by the inspector that even outlets in my 10 feet tall ceiling for lights and an opener, have to be GFCI protected.

Changes in the 2008 NEC removed virtually all the previous exceptions. The inspector is right.

What about a freezer? Seems that that was a reasonable exception (if it's "reasonable" to have a freezer in a garage ;).

May or may not have been a reasonable exception. But it is gone.

Plug-in refrigeration (15/20A 120V) in a commercial kitchen has to be GFCI protected.

Dumb.

Commercial residential

Ideally the freezer should have its own circuit. Last I looked, you could install a single (non-duplex) receptacle for something like a freezer or sump pump that does not have to be GFCI protected.

I looked up the code change proposals. The arguments included:

"The permitted leakage current for typical cord and plug connected equipment is 0.5 ma. The trip range for GFCI protective devices is 4-6 ma. For this utilization equipment to trip the GFCI device, it would have 8 to 12 times the leakage current permitted by the product standard." [Applies to both commercial and residential refrigerators - if a refrigerator trips a GFCI there is something wrong with it.]

and "The present generation of GFCI devices do not have the problems of 'nuisance tripping' that plagued the earlier devices."

The 2008 NEC removed virtually all the exceptions that allowed a non-GFCI receptacle where a GFCI receptacle was otherwise required (including sump pump and refrigeration). (And a separate circuit does not help.) Stated logic is in a post to krw.

(You can use a non-GFCI receptacle in a kitchen if it is not a "countertop" receptacle - as before.)

The thing at used to irritate the heck out of me during the early years of GFIs was those GFI outlets that tripped when power is first applied to them. Every time someone had a power failure, all of their GFIs would trip when power was restored.

Not so dumb.

In older "frostless" fridges sometimes there was a leakage path caused by the water which dripped down after being melted by the defrost heater. This, sometimes, could cause a "false trip" on a GFCI protected outlet.

From my experience, "fridges" made in the last 20 years protect the heater wiring from the water/ice.

There seems to be some "Old Wives Tales" about false tripping.

I don't have any citations to support my views but I just don't believe that dishwasher, washing machiens, or fridges should "trip" a GFCI. If they do perhaps they should be checked out.

LARGE numbers of electronic items (including uWave ovens) might cause a trip because they often have a "network" which connects neutral & hot with the protective ground. This network is usually just a cap and resister in parallel.

If you get enough of these "networks" on one circuit you might trip a GFCI.

They may not think there are nuisance trips, but I'm not willing to risk thousands of dollars worth of food on that bet.

That "makes sense" to me.

If a sump pump trips a GFCI then there is something wrong with the sump pump.

Most folks who rely upon a sump pump have a battery power backup and an alarm circuit. The backup doesn't kick in until the water is about 6" above the normal max level.

My mom has a GE microwave that would trip a GFCI whenever the door was open right from the time it was new. I looked into it at one point, over a decade ago, and I recall my conclusion was it was a combination of bypass capacitors in the RFI filter and the door interlock switches.

? "James Sweet" ?????? ??? ?????? news:h7clfs$386$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org...

Well, here in EU (Greece) there are no GFCI outlets, but only GFCI breakers, and they protect a whole residence! So, if you have a nuisance trip, you have to find which circuit breaker isolates the faulty line, and turn it off. The solution in modern construction is to piggytail almost every receptacle, and divide each room into 2 lighting circuits, so chances are slim that a nuisance trip will leave half the house in darkness. Here, outlets come only in 2 flavors, 10 A (1,5 mm^2-#18)and 16 A (2,5 mm^2-#16). The receptacles are absolutely the same, only the cable gauge changes. They (the 16 A ones)are used in washing machines, cloth dryers and dishwashers and space heaters. Modern residences now have 3 phase, 400/230 V with large loads being 3 phase and the rest distributed evenly on circuit breakers.

Keep in mind that here in the USA receptacles run at 115 volts not 230 volts. The equivalent circuits here would be 20 and 32 amps.