What are Ground Faults? | Repair and Replace

What does the ground wire do? In this quick episode of Repair and Replace, Vance explains how a ground fault happens. A ground fault occurs when the hot wire touches the metal housing. The ground wire provides a safe return path back to the source and will complete the circuit.

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[oscarmosca]

straight to the point videos. i like them.

[bravobanks]

Hey thanks a lot for the video! I learned more about ground faults in 5 minutes with you then I did over countless hours in school.

[zerisenayhabtom]

Your videos are amazing clear easy to understand go ahead

[hvactechniciangroup]

Good explanation everything & everyone learned easily.

[tedlahm]

Short to ground after the load. Interesting. Will be thinking about this for some time since that are the same.

[saadamiens]

Thanks for the video, if the appliance is not grounded and a ground fault occurs, can you please explain how a person would be electrocuted while touching only with his left hand the appliance housing - it makes sense to me that the left hand will be at the same potential than the metal housing however I understand that in order for the person to be electrocuted, he must have his other hand or another part of his body connected to neutral for the the circuit to compete and the electrons to flow, so how would he be electrocuted by touching only the hot wire and being completely disconnected from the neutral - thanks

[tariqmasood]

Good morning my question is .what is capacitor value of furnace blower moter .we need mfd and voltage

[heroknaderi]

Very informative thanks 🙏 I’ve also seen some people bypass a dead short by cutting the ground wire which creates a dangerous situation. I appreciate your video 👍😎

[linusluo]

Thank you for the video.
My outdoor plug just out of power while I using an electric lawn mower. GFCI and Ground fault BR breaker are both used in this line. I replaced both of them and still not working. The breaker's error code indicates there is ground fault issue. so just wondering how to narrow down and find out the ground problem.
Thanks.

[VannilaLotte]

Ground fault could occur when the ground cable not connected and the component conductive...

[vanivasil]

How can you check for ground fault if you do not have a gfi

[biggerterry]

Thanks for your very well produced videos.

I have a question you might be able to answer, since you also produced a video on condensate pumps. My condensate pump is plugged into a dedicated ground fault outlet, nothing else is plugged into it or chained off of it. For more than ten years it worked great and never tripped. I did replace the pump about six years ago when I had other maintenance work done and my contractor advised replacing it. This pump has a furnace cutoff, the old one did not.

What is happening lately, for a few months now, is the ground fault trips - for no particular reason. I have not changed anything in the house for years, so I don't suspect an unintended wiring error somewhere.

My suspicions are as follows: (1) The condensate motor is failing, (2) the GFI outlet is failing, or (3) the drain hose has slowly built up debris and is causing the sump pump motor to overwork at times, leading to a GFI trip.

I can definitely DIY this, and can easily afford to simply replace the condensate pump and GFI for much less than bringing in a plumber or technician. But I'm wondering about the drain tube which is 25- feet long and fairly difficult to work on. It is a bit cloudy in appearance, but the water moves along just fine inside. I am "tempted" to pour something into my pump - hydrogen peroxide, for instance - and let the chemical action clean out the tubing, as is done for aquarium tubing. Does this make sense?

Thanks for reading this! Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.

[lauadvincula]

Hi!

I have a new solar hybrid inverter installed last month and it is not in the final position yet so the grounding wire is not yet installed.

Its been raining hard at our place now for week and I noticed that every time I touch a bare metal part of the inverter like screws I can feel a tingling sensation. Is this a ground fault caused by moisture? Its not there when I first installed it.

Will it be fixed if I install the ground wire?

Thanks!

[benrogers]

Hi I was wondering if you can help me I have put I GFCI in my board. There is no problem until I use either the kettle or the Microwave the GFCI will trip but it will not trip with any other appliance. I done a insulation resistance test on the cables and found a short between the neutral and the ground cable this was due to corrosion in the socket on the wall that they were plugged into. I changed the socket and reterminated the cables the short has cleared but the GFCI still trips when you use either the microwave or the kettle. Can you give any advice?

[edwardquintana]

it does not take the least resistance it takes all paths!

[nickb]

Hi I just need some clarification, so basically since the frame is metal, it is allowing the hot leg to draw more amperage than the breaker itself causing it to trip when properly grounded? People tell me that since the ground wire has less resistance it trips, with out explaining/mentioning that it really has to go hand in hand with the metal frame of the load or a single gang box being the reason why it is less resistive? Please correct me if I'm wrong thank you

[goldfish]

Can you please explain why the current increases when we have a short ??

[earthage]

Do you or does anyone here know if I can simply use a (say) 250 VAC / 1 amp fast acting fuse to protect
the "ground" circuit of (or to) a Pure Sine Wave Inverter (that does NOT want the ground wire to be connected to neutral OR to anything other than ground?

[benrogers]

Hi I don't understand how the current increases if the ground fault happens before the load?

[stephenmichael]

I just received my amplifier. There were only two wires, life/hot wire and neutral wire. There was no earth/ground wire to the amplifier.

When I touch it, I was electrocuted due to current leakage. Do I need to add earth/ground wire to the body of the amplifier to solve the problem or look for the source of the leakage?