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East of Broken Bow | I will not plug in a tractor heater, without going through a GFCI of some sort. In fact, don't plug the tractor into a 'hot' cord, ever. Plug the cord to the tractor, then plug the cord into the outlet. Unplug in the same order. Yes, it takes a few more steps, but I need the exercise anyway.
We put in a garden shed this summer, and ran power to it. I installed a breaker box, and was surprised at how reasonable the prices for arc-fault breakers have gotten. Since the kids will be doing projects in there, all breakers are arc-fault, all outlets are ground-fault.
My plan for this year, is to upgrade my machine shed, to a breaker box, with arc-fault breakers, and upgrade outlets to ground fault.
For those not familiar with arc-fault, they have some kind of sensor that detects a 'spark', and cuts power when it senses one. For things like a block heater, I may need to install a switch (or timer) instead of plugging and un-plugging it, because the 'spark' when you plug it in, has the potential to trip it, but IMO, that is a small price to pay, to prevent a fire (arc-fault detects a 'spark' and cuts power before it sparks enough to start a fire).
The ground fault, is for safety purposes. With ground fault outlets, if the wires to the engine heater are bad, it'll trip, before you feel anything more than a little 'tingle'. | |
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Be careful we lost 2 young men in our area last week.
