Electricity and GFI tripping

[dalejanus]

My friend is a licensed union industrial electrician, but that's neither here nor there .I have done simple electrical work myself for years, like extending circuits and replacing receptacles, but have hired electricians for more complicated work.

I guess what I am looking for is how to troubleshoot and diagnose. If an electrician can locate the problem, that is worth hiring for.

Hoiwever, it seems to me that trying to find the problem will involve digging up the cable and replacing it whether I hire an electrician or do it myself. The circuit in my yard has an outlet at each corner with an extra one in the middle across the back. So the problem has to be in the receptacles or the wire in between.

Or could the problem be my pump draws more amps at startup than the GFI is rated for? (of course I don't remember the GFI rating)

I hope my little ASCII drawing formats ok

gfi never not gfi gfi rarely
R_______________R_________________R
| |
| pump |
| R not gfi
|
R GFI that keeps tripping
house

[dalejanus]

no, the formatting did not work. Oh well

[Watermom]

Maybe take a picture of your drawing and post the picture instead? (Use Flickr, Picasa, etc.)

[dalejanus]

The picture is not important. I have done more google searching and came up with a few things to try. I will have my electrician friend help me check that I don't have hot and neutral reversed at the pump. He may have a megger (and know how to us it) which is a supposed to be a very useful test device for these situations. I will replace the non GFI receptacle with a new one in case it got corroded . I will replace the one receptacle cover that is worn and not sealing correctly any more. Then I will see how it goes.
I also learned that when the gfi trips, pressing the test button first resets it completely. then press the reset button.