GFCI Breakers for Dummies

"Replace" the wiring, Jonra???

A not surprising number of the freelancers who pounded out "how-to" posts for the website eHow.com did little more than google the topic and reword whatever they found. Some of them completely blew it; others got it – most of it, anyway – right enough for what's known as "government work." The problem was that, unless a reader knew enough about the topic to see the screw-ups, the advice could be a little... off. "Off, like a couple of the steps in "How to Install a 20 Amp Gfci [sic] Circuit Breaker," written by Jonra Springs and now niched at the website HomeSteady.com by Leaf Group.

We read through what Springs transcribed and, at first glance, most of it seems acceptable. We appreciate that Jonra managed to get his content editor to accept the initialism "GFCI" instead of what the title scraper picked up.  We have to admit, though, that some of his introduction seems a little... strange:

"A GFCI circuit breaker offers protection for home electric users by breaking a circuit to cut power if a ground fault, or voltage leak, occurs anywhere in the electrical wiring. A common breaker switch protects only circuits and appliances."

We're still trying to understand the difference between the "circuits" and "anywhere in the electrical wiring"; but hey – none of us "studied liberal arts and computer science" like Jonra.

Without going into too many boring details, we note that Jonra clearly found out that,

"Most [electrical] codes demand 12-gauge wire for 20 amp circuits."

Good on him. That, however, caused a problem later. You see, while rewording some fairly authoritative instructions for the job, Jonra told his readers to,

"Check the wire gauge on an existing circuit if installing a replacement breaker.... Install a 12/2 Romex cable to replace 14-gauge electrical wiring in an old circuit."

When we saw that bullshit, it became obvious that Jonra had no idea what he was talking about: pull the 14-ga wire from a household circuit and replace it with 12-ga? Is this moron serious? Before you answer that, take a look at the image above...

So now you know why Springs is collecting yet another Dumbass of the Day award. In his case, that makes six of 'em.

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