GFCI not testing properly

[rwand1]

During a recent inspection I found a GFCI that was painted to match the colour of the bathroom walls. I plugged in my tester and tripped the GFCI, but because it was painted the reset button would not work.

Oh well not my fault someone painted the darn thing, I wrote it up in the report to be repaired. Catch 22 situation. You don't know its going to trip so you test it, but only to discover otherwise.

[David C. Macy]

I woud like to clarify something. The ony one full of crap around here is me.

Thanks for the replies.


Dave

[Paul W. Abernathy]

lol....relax.....he was only teasing him as you can see in dougs original comments....jeff was just giving him a rise....thats all...

[Mark A. Timpani, CMI]

Ok, other than another GFCI that causes a problem, lets get back to the original post.

The same thing has happened to me. The GFCI is 8 years old, probably never been tripped, when I trip it the reset button will not go in or it goes in all the way and does nothing,like the spring is broke? It will not reset.

Now we can say failed under testing and leave both or all three baths without outlets, or what? One time it happened and the male middle aged owner said "no problem, I replaced all the other ones in the house, I'll do that one when you leave. The second time it happened it was with a elderly hadicapped female owner. I felt lousy leaving her that way and got me wondering how other HI handle this.

In AZ we can not work on an inspected house for two years. Am I supposed to break the rules and replace it and hope she doesn't call the state on me? Do I just carry a spare GFCI outlet and offer it to her as a sign of peace. If I call in an electrician that can get pretty costly.

[tneumann]

You didn't break it..it was broken already...it just showed its' state of disrepair under testing....

The same would have happened if all her grandchildren turned their blowdryers on at the same time while here oxygen pump was running...yes?

You just sped up the process and kept it from showing up at 7pm on a saturday nite during Quintuple Service Fee time for electricians....you did her a favor!

[Dale Duffy]

Mark,

You can repair anything you want as long as there is no charge involved to the customer.

Regardless, I would still have someone licensed in the trade to make the repair if it was something which had to be done right now.

Next thing you know they will be blaming you for someone getting shocked/elecrocuted...etc...whether it happened or not.

Generally the worst case scenario would be an extension cord might be needed to feed a frig/freezer until a replacement could be made.