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I recently installed a GFCI outlet in an aluminum sunroom in the interior wall of the sunroom. It worked fine in the summer but now in the winter months when it gets real cold at night the GFCI trips.

The walls are just over two inch thick, and the insulation used is some cheap styrofoam condensed pebbles. Since the wall is just over two inches, the back of the metal box touches that outside facing wall. Not sure if that is affecting it.

If you’ve experienced this or have any idea why it’s happening and how to solve it that would be great.

isherwood
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Zach Smith
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1 Answers1

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Condensation --> Ground Fault

That's all. You probably can't prevent all condensation on an outer wall in cold weather, especially in a thin wall.

There are a few ways to mitigate the problem:

  • Inside the Box

Remove the GFCI/receptacle. Tape (electrical tape only) over all connections/exposed metal parts. Install it again. If the problem is due to condensation dripping down from the top and shorting out just enough to cause a ground fault, that may be enough to fix it because the condensation won't touch the hot or neutral lines.

  • Before the Box

If the problem is water getting into the GFCI mechanism itself, a simpler (not GFCI) receptacle, preferably weather resistant (to have a better chance to stand up to water, though in this case from the wall rather than from the weather outside) may solve the problem. But you can't get rid of the GFCI protection, so you need to move the GFCI protection to either a previous receptacle in the chain (in a different room or in this room but on a different wall) or to the breaker.

  • Move the Box

As suggested in a comment, move the GFCI/receptacle from an inside-the-wall box (which is normally best but not here because of condensation due to the thin outside wall) to a surface-mounted box. That will make the entire receptacle be inside the conditioned space (even if you are not running HVAC all the time, it will still be better than the outer wall) and have the entire usual wall thickness as insulation.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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