AccomplishedEnergy24 t1_jaewucc wrote on February 28, 2023 at 11:00 PM

Reply to comment by WealthyMarmot in Adding outside GFCI by Unlikely_Play

single pole GFCI breaker is not materially different than switching the load side of a single GFCI since he has a shared neutral and single shared breaker.

If it was a double pole GFCI and two circuits it would be different.

But in this single pole config, the circuit can't tell whether you have a GFCI breaker and switch the load downstream, or use a regular breaker + GFCI outlet and switch the load downstream of that.

It's the same exact circuit. You've just separated "thing providing overcurrent protection" from "thing detecting ground fault" instead of putting them in a single thing.

IE a GFCI breaker is the same as if you used a regular breaker and ran it all to a GFCI outlet next to the panel, and then ran everything downstream of that including the switch.

Switching in any of these cases (GFCI breaker, single GFCI + load switched beyond that, shared neutral and two GFCI's, etc) will likely cause nuisance trips, though the two former will probably be way worse than the latter.

Yowomboo t1_jaezj0d wrote on February 28, 2023 at 11:19 PM

OP doesn't appear to want to run any new wire. Switching after the GFCI would require new wire. Swapping in a breaker solves this problem. However not being an electrician I don't know if swapping in a GFCI breaker could cause any other issues.

Given that OP is asking such a question I definitely wouldn't recommend they swap a breaker. They should 100% contact an electrician.

Edit: Just realized what you were getting at. Assuming OP could find an outlet that comes before the switch/outlet combo he could 100% swap that with a GFCI outlet. Again given the way this question is being asked with no additional information OP should call an electrician.