The Green Industry's Resource Center

rlitman · #31 12-16-2009, 02:29 PM

Oh well. GFCI indoors is another story.
It could be water intrusion in your connections, it could be bad cords (I've had cords with just enough internal leakage to set off GFI's, but it could be that the GFI is just getting too old. They tend to get lazier over time, and trip more easily.

bike5200 · #32 12-16-2009, 07:44 PM

GFI's go bad in two ways. I had one GFI that never tripped it was great, found out it was bad, got shocked, and was not working. GFI wear out and will trip real easy, found this out on a construction job, after electrician changed it was not as bad. Have you guys checked your extension cords to make sure they have the right polarity. They make a plug that will plug in to a cord or socket and it lights up a certain way if everything is right. Check the plug that you plug into first, if it is not right the cord will not be right. I have found new cords that had a lose/open ground.

David Gretzmier · #33 12-17-2009, 01:28 AM

also, sometimes GFCI's are wired off another GFCI's. Those do pop more. and circuit breaker GFCI with regular plugs outside do tend to pop less.

NY Landscape Lighting · #34 12-06-2011, 09:09 PM

Rain this week, had to bring back the GFCI hatred. Wish I had an answer.

addictedtolandscaping · #35 12-07-2011, 05:51 AM

Me too Chris.

Off to check on the problem child display. Every time it rains something happens to it. I know the GFCI is worn, client has yet to replace it.

turf hokie · #36 12-07-2011, 06:51 AM

There has to be an answer to this, even going all LED does not help, was out last nite trying to move cords and isolate problems, rain all day yesterday and all day today.....

worst part is the customers blaming us and cant understand how their neighbor does it themselves and their lites are on, I hired a pro and mine are out.

They fail to notice the neighbor has 1000 lights and they have 10x that therefore 10x the chance of an issue.

So far it looks like we are sitting on about 15 service calls directly related to GFI issues.

I'd rather have a foot of snow than rain.......

addictedtolandscaping · #37 12-07-2011, 12:46 PM

Got up there this am, plugged it in and everything lit up great.

I took a pic with the phone, sent it to him. Next thing I know another phone call from him, the entire thing is out. Told him, it has to be the rain, doesn;t want to hear it.

Then the next thing I know, he calls back, changed outlets now only the bottom half of the tree is out. Sounds to me like he blew a fuse. Absolutely pouring here, so guess what this guy is not doing today, something about 120 volts and water, ah nope.

Supposed to change to snow tonight, so God only knows what is going to happen.

Another huge issue there is the frigging squirrels. I know he shot one last week that he saw come out of the tree. SO now, once the snow issue is resolved tomorrow, up I go again, isolate each set, kicker is, all of them are dressed with dielectric grease. Frigging mini incandescent. All done with them, no more, to many damn headaches.

The CDI 5mm are amazing, so they are going to be my new mini lights. The warm white literally matches HBL mini incandescent. I can not for the life of me understand how everyone in a warmer climate does it, or maybe it is the temp change that screws everything up when moisture gets added.

Thank God this is the last season on those sets, I do probably 18-24 service calls on that particular tree a season, nothing I do seems to stop it.

turf hokie · #38 12-07-2011, 07:44 PM

IT'S STILL FRIGGIN RAINING....AND THE SAME PEOPLE ARE CALLING....AND I TRIED, I REALLY, REALLY TRIED...BUT THEY WONT STAY ON...AND MOST CLIENTS DON'T WANT TO HEAR ITS THE RAIN....

It is officially the time of year I begin to hate this business.....and the sad thing is it is really only 5% of my customers but they account for 80% of my headaches....

NY Landscape Lighting · #39 12-07-2011, 08:36 PM

Agreed. Had one customers electrician tell him it was my fault.

addictedtolandscaping · #40 12-07-2011, 09:23 PM

Bryan I understand exactly where you are with that. I have gone over and over this one tree in my head I don't know how many times. I started to think ot as the load on the fuses, so I went and checked on the larger projects I have out that I know I am pulling 2.7 on and no issue there. It is just the frigging tree, I swear to God it has to be possessed.

If I find another area that a frigging squirrel chewed again, I swear I am going to sit in the parking lot with my 06 and shoot every frigging one of them!!

Out of all of my projects, this one is a guaranteed pain in the a$$ each year for the exact same thing.