What Does A GFI Do Anyway? - Home Electricity
I don't know how many times someone that I was working
for, asked me, this simple question. What does a GFI do? Why do we need
them? And how come they cost so much money? I can't answer everyone's
questions, but I can tell you what a GFI does and how important they are
in your home.
A GFI is actually an extremely sensitive electrical plug that is
designed to stop the flow of electricity at the smallest sign that
something could be wrong in your kitchen and bathroom. It wasn't that
long ago, that people were getting electrocuted, from hair dryers
falling into their bathtubs.
Someone would have an electric hairdryer sitting on the edge of the
bathtub or maybe the edge of a countertop near the bathtub and the
moment that the hairdryer fell into the water and you were actually in
the bathtub, there's a good chance that you weren't going to be happy.
It wasn't long before someone invented a ground fault interrupter.
Commonly known as a GFI. These sensitive electrical outlets would
shorten the amount of time that it would take to turn the electrical
breaker off, during an emergency. Every GFI has its own sensitive
electrical breaker and it, so that you could reset it, at the electrical
outlet.
There's really not a lot you can say about a GFI, but there is one thing
that constantly keeps showing up in my mind, over and over again. These
sensitive electrical outlets have probably saved thousands of lives and
will probably save many more in the future.
I would like to thank whoever invented the GFI for their wonderful
contribution to man's safety.