GFI outlets trip when it rains

[The-Breeze]

This is a situation that occurs here at home and actually is not bus related. I was hoping that someone could shed some light on this.

I have GFI outlets, one in each bathroom. When it rains, they trip and will not reset. I can't actually say when they finally do reset as I push the button periodically each time I happen by until they work again. I have this "feeling" that this might be a grounding problem though it would seem that a wetter ground would be providing a better ground.

We haven't actually done much as far as troubleshooting this as it is only an inconvenience not having night lights at night. The problem comes with being able to use a small electric heater in the bathroom come cold weather.

We don't necessarily use the heater if we plan a short trip there, but there are times when it would be nice to experience a little heat if your sitting for any length of time.

Has anyone had experience with this problem?

 

[nat_ster]

You have outlets on the outside of your house on the same breaker, or a leak in your house.

Nat

 

[The-Breeze]

Your absolutely right, I forgot about the covered outlet that's on our covered deck.

Do you think that the cover is allowing water in? This outlet is just a few inches off the floor of the covered deck we added on. Also, we live in a mobile home so as typical our eaves are about the size of a straw and we gave up trying to keep them cleaned out years ago.

 

[nat_ster]

Yes, the outside outlet is getting water inside, some how.

It's common for the GFI outlets to trip in the rain if a cord in left plugged in. Water enters the end and trips the circuit.

Nat

 

[bansil]

Trailer also
same problem, our bathroom GCFI was popping all the time it gave power to
our outside outlet had the silicone/sealant die due to uv/shrinkage and just being 15 years old, I replaced it with a better outdoor box and new outlet and with fresh sealant we are up and running again

(also replaced GFCI in bathroom)

 

[The-Breeze]

I agree....the problem is most definitely in the outdoor plug. We had an extension cord plugged in for quite a while and unplugged & stopped using it quite awhile back. It has a heavy duty metal cover on it so we figured that if we just kept it closed & unused our problem would go away.

I guess, that's why I didn't even mention it when I first presented my problem.

I've noticed that there are gobs of silicone around the cover, evidently, the problem has been occurring for quite some time and the previous owners idea was to keep adding globs of silicone around it (which, if you've ever tried to seal off something know that adding more to a problem doesn't fix the problem).

It's right now in a place that's not to easy to get to, but I might be able to get to it enough to scrape & clean off the old silicone and reseal it to see if that helps.