GFCI circuit breaker limitations?

[Cobb]

I was visiting a neighbor and she showed me this. Its an outlet hiding in a corner of a bedroom for a kid. The whole room is on a ground fault circuit braker.

This outlet cycles off and on with the braker. Turns out the kid liked to watch sparks and piaced something metal across the leads of a night light and watched the show uninterrupted.

Is it because it didnt involve ground it didnt trip?

[H-Man]

GFCI only trips when current on the hot does not equal current on the neutral.

[ksa8907]

Had thw child put his fingers on the metal object, it would have tripped.

[toc]

Originally Posted by ksa8907

Had thw child put his fingers on the metal object, it would have tripped.

May* have tripped.

Its up to the comparator circuit to function correctly.

[Cobb]

Interesting.... I was renting a rug doctor shampoo machine with upholstery attachment. I was trying to clean the seats in my car and it ran for a few minutes and tripped my gf outlet. Im pretty sure I was safe as the wand was 10 ft long, but it was rather frustrating having to keep resetting the outlet.

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by toc

May* have tripped.

Its up to the comparator circuit to function correctly.

Do you know what the failure rate is? I would assume this to be incredibly small considering the possibility of a tort claim.