GFCI (kitchen) trips no matter what switch you flip. First it was the porch light. Now it is every fixture in the house.

You may be pulling too many amps for the circuits in your house, or the breaker could be old and need replacing. There may also be GFCI breakers that trip when there is a sudden rush of current, like a large motor starting.
See if you have GFCI breakers for the outlets you have tested, or the one that keeps tripping.
Check the amperage of the breaker(s) that trip and check the amperage of the machine. If they are close you may be risking overloading the circuit.
If your house is old and the wiring is good (and can easily handle the amps), you may consider changing the breaker to a new one of the SAME RATING. NEVER REPLACE A BREAKER WITH A HIGHER AMP RATING (same with fuses). They are designed to be the weak link, and going up in rating will make the wiring the weak link and is a major hazard.

This is my first thought. Do you have GFI in you house.
I lost power on my front porch one time, found out it was the GFI in my bathroom tripped. Reset it and everything was good. Nothing wrong with the GFI it was my kids playing with it.

Test each light separately.
Black Hot wire arrives at one screw on the switch. The Hot black wire going to Lights connects to other screw on the switch.
The White Neutral that completes the circuit to lights is connected with other white wires that are covered with wire nut pushed to back of box.
Open up light#1, and the Hot and Neutral arrive from switch box.
The Hot and Neutral going to lights#2-6 are also located inside light#1 box.
Check each wire for signs of high heat and burning. Check each wire if the insulation has been sliced, or cut short, or if copper is visible because wire nut does not cover wires correctly
http://waterheatertimer.org/How-to-select-right-wire-nut.html
Disconnect Hot and Neutral going to lights#2-6, so switch is only turning on light#1.
Test if there is a short when turning switch ON.
Then repeat step, so switch turns on light#1 and light#2, but light#3-6 are disconnected.

If you need further help, I’m available over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/gene_9f0ef4df2f9897e7

Hi James, I'm an electrician and will try to help you out with this problem.

An AFCI combination breaker is a type that will open a circuit when either condition exists: (1) A sustained current (in amps) load greater than 80% of the breaker's rating is present for a predetermined length of time. Your 15 amp breaker should hold a 12 amp load 24 hours / day; but a 13 amp load may only be passed for several hours - a 15 amp load only a few minutes or a 17 amp load only a few seconds and (2) Whenever the internal circuitry of the breaker sees load disturbances that mimic an arcing short circuit as programmed by the manufacturer.

Since you have lowered the load on the circuit in question, it is probably not an overload condition, but rather a problem with the remaining items on the circuit or wiring in the home. I suspect that you did not remove the lamps from the fixtures and wonder if you you are using CFL (compact fluorescent lamps) in them. Some CFLs and regular fluorescent lamps can "look" like an arcing short (esspecially when fisrt turned on) and cause a false positive for this condition. Remove any / all florescent lamps (or leave the switches off). Also, make sure any motor loads are disconnected, too. The motors that have "brushes" (looks like little sparks inside) can have the arcing signature that the AFCI thinks is a problem. Once you've cleared all these items, try again.

If it still won't hold, you may have a bad AFCI breaker. You should not attempt replacement if you do not know what you're doing in the panel. This will be your lowest cost fix. If the problem still won't go away, you're going to need to spend some time (or money on an electrician) checking all the connections at each outlet, switch, fixture, junction box, etc. to find the source of the fault. In rare instances, the fault may be a result of supporting staples being driven to hard during construction of the building.

The GFCI test / reset operations have nothing to do with an AFCI tripping condition, as they work completely different from each other.

Good luck!

Hi Augie, I'm an electrician and can help you with this problem.

First, a couple of notes. You must provide GFCI protection for a fixture (light, fan, etc.) in a shower under any of the following conditions: 1) If the manufacturer specifies this protection in this location (nearly every fan in a shower requires this protection), 2) If the local / state electrical code requires it (the National Electric Code does not have such a requirement) and 3) If the local wiring inspector requires it. You can argue with the inspector if there is no local / state requirement - but is usually not worth the effort.

Next, cautionary notes: Nuisance tripping of GFCI devices have nearly been eliminated in newer fixtures and small motor loads. Some older fluorescent fixtures and larger motor loads may cause some trouble - but that's about it especially if an inspector is requiring the protection (this happens pretty often). If a newer light fixture is tripping a GFCI device - something is wrong. This should be fully checked out before powering it again. There is a very real potential for shock or burns under the right conditions. Use extreme caution here. Maybe a new fixture is in order??

Finally, to your question. Most GFCI outlets have LINE and LOAD terminals. This means that anything connected to the LOAD terminals will have the benefit of GFCI protection. The line terminals however, are not protected.

If you connect the circuit that you do NOT want to have GFCI protection to the wires that will be connected to the LINE terminals, no GFCI protection will be afforded to them.

The circuit that you DO wish to have GFCI protection should be connected to the LOAD terminals. Since you can not secure two wires to a terminal, you will need to connect a short length (8") of insulated wire to each of the line terminal screws (silver and gold screws) and connect the other end to the wires that supply power to this GFCI outlet *and* the wires that will provide non-GFCI protected power to the light fixture through the switch; with wirenuts.

Basically, the jumper from the outlet to the switch can not come from the LOAD terminal - instead it must come before the protection - from the wire that brings "hot" power to the LINE terminal side. The same holds true for the white neutral wire that connects to the fixture; it can not come from the LOAD terminal - it must come from the wire that brings "neutral" power to the LINE terminal of the GFCI outlet.

I hope this helps and good luck! If you have more questions - ask away.

The lights may all be on the same circuit, but are they all connected to the GFCI (as in if you hit the test button do all the lights go off with the GFCI)? If so that's ok, but not really necessary. The places you see lights connected to GFCI's are in bathroom lighting where there is a built in receptacle in the light that can be used by someone. If it is only a light I see no reason for it to be connected, which brings me to my last point. If the lights are not connected to the GFCI the GFCI may still be drawing current from the circuit. A GFCI is a device that protects a person using anything plugged into it by sensing a rise in current. Many times a GFCI can be faulty or ultra senstive, where even the smallest amount of current can trip it. Replace your GFCI and the problem should fix itself. Just make sure to connect nothing to the side taped with yellow tape (the load side) if nothing was connected to the load side before (the lights would be connected here if they were before).

You have a ground fault on one of them. Disconnect the fixtures one at a time until the rcd (gfci) does not trip. then replace or repair the bad one.

Hello

Coffee makers have a heating unit in them which draw a lot of current. If it is on the same circuit as refrigerator, toaster and other it will trip the breaker. Also, some breakers are more sensitive than others. Have an electrician run a separate circuit for the coffee maker outlet. Try running it in the dining room outlet, which I hope is separate from the kitchen outlets. Is the house old? Older homes have a lot of mixed up wiring.

John

It sound like all of those go through your bathroom GFCI. I would recommend moving your outdoor circuit breaker indoors if possible or enclosing it to make it water-proof. You may also do some rewiring from your main breaker box ( if you are handy) to eliminate the outdoor box completely considering you have 100 amp / 200 amp breaker box inside your house. If you still have an old FUSE BOX with 60 amp service, I would recommend replacing it with a 100 amp or 200 amp breaker box depending on the size of your house. I would separate the laundry room by itself with 12/2 gauge wire with ground on a 20 amp breaker. You can then take your bathroom (using 12/2 gauge wire with ground keeping your gfci ) and run it to another breaker in the house with a 20 amp breaker or add a new one if there is room in your main box. Now all you have left is the porch light. You can run that separate from everything to your main breaker box using 14/2 gauge with ground to a breaker in your main box by adding a new 15 amp breaker or adding it to another 15 amp breaker that does not have a very high load such as a bedroom. In general Kitchens, Bathrooms, Laundry rooms should be on there own separate 20 amp breakers. Most every other room can be 14/2 with ground on a 15 amp breaker... hope this helps....Joe

I would check your breakers again your oven breaker is a double one .. one of them may not be turned back on...