How to Reset a Tripped GFCI Outlet
Why this matters
A GFCI outlet is the one with two buttons in the middle, usually marked TEST and RESET. When it trips, it cuts power to itself and often to several ordinary-looking outlets elsewhere, which is why a bathroom outlet, a garage freezer and the outdoor lights can all go dead at once while every breaker in the panel looks fine. Most of the time one firm press of RESET fixes it. The rest of the time, the GFCI is doing exactly its job, which is warning you that electricity is leaking somewhere it should not, and pressing RESET over and over is the wrong answer.
Before anything else: if the outlet, its cover or the floor around it is wet, if you see scorching or melting, or you smell burning, do not touch it or press its buttons. Turn off the breaker for that area if you can reach the panel with dry hands and a dry floor (see related: How to Shut Off Power at Your Electrical Panel), and call an electrician. Smoke or fire is a 911 call.
What a trip actually means
A GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) watches the current going out to whatever is plugged in and the current coming back. They should match. If even a few thousandths of an amp go missing, that current is leaking to ground, possibly through water, a damaged cord or a person, and the GFCI shuts off in a fraction of a second. Outlet-type GFCIs for homes are listed to UL 943, which for this type sets the trip point at about 5 milliamps, far below what it takes to trip a breaker.
So a trip has one of three causes:
- Something plugged in is leaking, such as a hair dryer with a worn cord, an old freezer, or outdoor string lights after rain.
- Moisture or damage in the wiring, often an outdoor or garage outlet where water got into the box.
- A brief disturbance, which happens now and then and never comes back.
A reset tells you which. If it holds with everything unplugged and stays held, you are probably looking at the first or third cause. If it will not hold even with nothing plugged in, it is the second, and that belongs to an electrician. The reasoning behind each pattern is in the tech-facing card, GFCI and AFCI Troubleshooting Reference; why your house has them at all is in GFCI and AFCI Protection in Your Home Explained.
Step 1: Unplug everything on the dead outlets
Before resetting anything, unplug whatever was plugged into the outlets that went dead, starting with whatever was running when the power went.
Why: if a plugged-in appliance caused the trip, resetting with it still plugged in just trips it again, and you learn nothing. With everything out, a reset that holds tells you the wiring is probably fine and the cause is one of the things you unplugged.
What breaks if you skip it: you reset, it trips, you conclude the GFCI is broken, and the hair dryer that caused it goes back into use.
Step 2: Find the GFCI that controls the dead outlet
The dead outlet may be the GFCI itself, or it may be downstream of one somewhere else. Look, in this order:
- The dead outlet itself. Two buttons in the middle means it is a GFCI.
- Other outlets in the same room, especially near a sink.
- The nearest bathroom, garage, kitchen counter, basement, laundry or outdoor outlet. These are the places codes require GFCI protection (NEC 210.8, in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted), so they are where the GFCIs live. In many houses built in the 1980s and 1990s, one GFCI in a bathroom or the garage feeds outlets in other bathrooms, the garage and outside.
- Behind things. GFCIs in garages and basements often end up behind a freezer, a workbench or shelving.
- The panel. Some circuits are protected by a GFCI breaker instead, which has its own TEST button on the handle. See related: How to Reset a Tripped Breaker Once.
A downstream outlet sometimes carries a small sticker reading "GFCI Protected." When you find the GFCI that controls it, write down which outlets it feeds. That note saves the search next time. See related: Your House Records File and What Goes In It.
Step 3: Press RESET firmly, once
Press the RESET button straight in, hard, until it clicks and stays in. Many GFCIs need more force than you expect. Some have a small light whose meaning varies by maker; the instructions printed on the device or in its packaging say what yours means.
If it will not reset at all, the GFCI may have no power. Most GFCIs made in roughly the last two decades refuse to reset when nothing is feeding them, so check the panel for a tripped breaker before deciding the GFCI is bad.
Why once: if it resets and trips again straight away with nothing plugged in, pressing it again will not change the answer. The leak is still there.
Step 4: Prove it works, then prove it protects
Plug a lamp you know works into the GFCI and into each dead downstream outlet. They should all light.
Then press TEST. The RESET button should pop out with a click and the lamp should go dark. Press RESET again to restore power. Most manufacturers ask for this test once a month.
Why: a GFCI that resets but does not trip on TEST is not protecting anything, and nothing about how it looks tells you that. A GFCI that fails its TEST is due for replacement by an electrician.
Step 5: Plug things back in one at a time
Plug in one item, turn it on and wait a minute. Then the next. If the GFCI trips when one particular item goes in or switches on, that item is your likely cause. Leave it unplugged and do not use it until it has been checked or replaced.
Why: this is the only way to find out which of several plugged-in things is leaking without an electrician's tools.
What breaks if you skip it: everything goes back in together, it trips, and you are back at Step 1 without having learned which item did it.
Step 6: Know when to stop
Stop and call an electrician when:
- It trips again right away with nothing plugged in. The fault is in the wiring or the device.
- It trips again on its own after a reset that held, with only things plugged in that held before.
- The outlet, its box or its cover is wet, or the trips follow rain or watering. Leave anything outdoors unplugged and the outlet unused.
- It will not reset and the breaker is on.
- It fails its TEST.
Never replace a GFCI with an ordinary outlet to stop the trips, and never open the outlet or its box. A GFCI that keeps tripping is a warning, and removing it removes the warning, not the problem.
Worked example: the garage after a rainy night
The house: built in 1994. One GFCI outlet in the garage, behind a set of metal shelves, feeds the other garage outlets and both outdoor outlets. Plugged in on the circuit: a chest freezer in the garage, and a set of string lights on the back patio outlet.
Saturday, 8 a.m., after rain overnight. The freezer is silent and the patio lights are off. The panel shows every breaker on. The garage floor is dry.
Step 1. The homeowner unplugs the freezer and the string lights.
Step 2. No two-button outlet is visible on the garage walls. Behind the shelves near the side door he finds it, with the RESET button popped out.
Step 3. He presses RESET firmly. It clicks and stays in.
Step 4. A lamp lights in the GFCI and in a garage outlet across the room. He presses TEST: click, lamp off. RESET again: lamp on. The GFCI is working.
Step 5. He plugs in the freezer alone and waits. The compressor starts, and a minute later the GFCI is still holding. He walks out to the patio. The in-use cover on the patio outlet, the kind meant to stay closed with a cord plugged in, had been left open, and there are beads of water inside the cover. That fits Step 6's third stop: a wet outlet. He leaves the string lights unplugged and leaves the patio outlet alone.
Sunday, 7 a.m. The GFCI has tripped again overnight, with only the freezer plugged in. That is a trip on its own after a reset that held, the second stop in Step 6. He does not keep resetting it. He keeps the freezer lid shut, since a full freezer that stays closed generally holds food frozen for about two days, and calls an electrician on Monday morning.
What the electrician found: water in the patio outlet's box from the open cover, which was leaking to ground every time it rained and dried. She replaced the outlet and the damaged cover, confirmed the GFCI tripped on TEST and held overnight with the freezer running, and pointed out the shelves in front of the GFCI.
What would have changed it:
- If the GFCI had tripped the instant the freezer went in on Saturday, with the string lights still unplugged, the freezer would have been the leading suspect rather than the patio outlet. That is an appliance repair question, and the freezer would have stayed off until it was checked.
- If it had tripped even with both unplugged, Step 6's first stop would have applied on Saturday morning instead of Sunday.
When there is no tripped GFCI anywhere
Sometimes you check every GFCI and every breaker, everything is on, and an outlet or a run of outlets is still dead. That pattern usually points to a loose connection at one outlet in the chain, where the wire feeding the rest has come loose or burned through. It is not a reset problem, and it is worth taking seriously: a loose connection can heat up before it fails completely. Leave the dead outlets unused, note which ones they are and in what order they sit along the wall, and call an electrician. If any outlet or switch plate on that run feels warm, looks discolored or smells hot, turn off the breaker for that area and say so when you call.
A habit that prevents the hunt
Once a year, or when you test your smoke alarms, press TEST on every GFCI in the house and RESET it. You learn where each one is, which outlets each controls, and whether any have stopped protecting. Keep the GFCI reachable: move the shelf, not the outlet.
References
- NFPA 70, National Electrical Code, Section 210.8 (where GFCI protection is required in dwellings), as adopted by your jurisdiction; the list of locations has grown with each edition
- UL 943, the standard GFCI devices are listed to
- See related: GFCI and AFCI Troubleshooting Reference
- See related: GFCI and AFCI Protection in Your Home Explained
- See related: When to Stop and Call a Licensed Pro Around the House