Receptacles

[John Van Emmerik]

New to this forum and it's great. I just purchased a manuf home on 2.1 acres in a rural area. The inspector said the house (1992 Champion 26X60 Meadow Creek) is overall in great shape & on a well done permanent foundation. I have a couple simple repairs to do but the electrical fix has me perplexed.
He suggested replacing the two receptacles above the kitchen sink with GFI. The receptacles are the self contained type duplexed with a rocker switch and snap on cover. I can't find self contained GFI's. Do I have to re-do these with standard receptacles/switches or just forget it? There are standard GFI single receptacles in the baths. Any help is appreciated.

John V.

[Roy T. Bonney]

The code does not require each and every receptacle to be a GFCI. It does require that each be GFCI protected. Here's how it's done. The manufacturer has two options, first they could use a GFCI circuit breaker in the electric panel. Second, and the most used is to install a GFCI receptacle and then wire in additional regular receptacles after the GFCI in the circuit. This allows the installed GFCI to provide the same protection to each of the regular receptacles added after it in the circuit. I think you will find that if an improperly grounded appliance is plugged into one of those regular recepts, a GFCI at another location will "trip". Back to your original question, the GFCI's are not modular.

[rmurray]

You were very smart to have a professional home inspector..Kitchen receptacles
are now required to be protected in new construction...But there is no law that would require retrofitting..pre-code homes...All this will do is protect you if you are dumb enough to put your hand and a plugged in coffee pot in the same sink of water...Only you can decide if you need that kind of extra protection....Have you ever heard of anyone electrocuted in their kitchen sink??

From the above you can guess I would not worry about this and be careful not to put electrical items in the sink with water in it...

[eugene]

the self contained electical recepts you asked about are prefectly fine to be installed with the right tools. You would not want to spend the money to buy the proper tool, so just get an old work junction box and install regular GFCI recepts in the place.
Don't skimp on safety.
And yes, I had a neigbor whose husband was electrocuted when an electric drill shorted while he was touching the metal drain line under the sink. A GFCI would have saved his life.