I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. I have an acorn parking lot light where I work that is on a circuit with 2 outside outlets, one of which is a GFI. The GFI keeps tripping. When I reset it, it all seems to work fine, sometimes for a few days, and then suddenly it's tripped when I come into work. The lot light is on a photocell. I've checked for any obvious defects in the wiring at the outlets and at the base of the light pole. It seems fine to my eyes at least. This doesn't trip the breaker in the main panel. I'm not sure which breaker it is, they weren't labeled correctly, but no breakers are tripped, just the GFI outlet. I used a GFI tester and it tested fine. Any ideas?

 

Did you try replacing the GFCI?

 

No it tested fine and the light on the front wasn't flashing. It says to replace if flashing. Do you think its just a problematic GFI? Its only about 1.5 years old.

 

Either that or a ground fault. That's what they are made for. Find the fault first. It could be leaking due to inclimate weather and water causing the instability. GFCI's do go bad, and aren't that expensive, but if it doesn't solve your problem, you need to dig for that fault.

 

Welcome to the forums!

If the GFCI is outside you need a weather resistant receptacle in a housing rated for use in wet areas. If the wires feeding the light are connected to the LOAD terminals on the GFCI, I would move them to the LINE terminals along with the wires feeding the GFCI.

I can't think of any reason for the light to have GFCI protection, and the photocell control control might be causing the GFCI to open the circuit. Since it's intermittent, though, it's more likely weather related.

 

I'll do some more investigating tomorrow. The light happens to be on the GFI protected circuit that's actually meant to protect the outdoor outlets. They're in weather protected housings. That particular circuit has two outlets and the pole light. I'll swap the GFI with a different one and see if that does the trick. Thanks for the quick responses everyone!