Spent 4 hours chasing a phantom ground fault today

Had a commercial job in Raleigh, a new lighting panel that kept tripping the GFCI breaker on circuit 7 every 15 minutes. Turned out a wire nut in the last junction box had a tiny strand poking out touching the box, took me forever to find. Anybody else ever have a simple fix hide behind a time sink like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_patel571mo ago

Nah man, I kinda see it differently honestly. Four hours is rough but sometimes the hardest finds are the ones that teach you the most, you know? Like next time you run into a phantom ground fault, you're gonna check those tiny loose strands way earlier in the game. That's just how this trade works, we all pay our dues in time before we get good at spotting the sneaky stuff. It sucks in the moment but it builds your troubleshooting brain way better than a quick fix ever would.

nancy3511mo ago

Man that's kinda like when I spent half a day chasing a short on a job last summer. Turned out a wire nut had a tiny bit of copper poking through the tape, barely visible. My boss just smiled and said welcome to the club. Frustrating but now I always double check those damn wire nuts before moving on to the big stuff. Funny how the little things humble you in this trade huh.