> Good luck finding an easy-to-install whole house GFCI in the US market.

Not sure I'd want one, to be honest. There are some devices that trip GFCIs and I don't think I'd like my mains to trip that easily. I just use GFCI breakers as necessary. And certain circuits I go with AFCI instead.

> And certain circuits I go with AFCI instead.

IIRC, in the US, code now requires AFCI pretty much everywhere except when GFCI is required.

And AFCI is a bit of a PITA, to the point where electricians advise me against adding anything new to existing circuits in my house (because then the local inspector would require a new AFCI breaker, apparently in other areas the inspectors are less picky and would be satisfied with an AFCI outlet).

Last time I had work done, which was about six months ago, we didn't have to use AFCI for anything other than bedrooms (and maybe others, nothing that applied to the four circuits I was having installed though). Maybe a very recent change?

I agree on them being a PITA sometimes. They're somewhat prone to thinking that electric motors (e.g. fans) are trying to start a fire.

It's a fairly recent change; your municipality probably hadn't adopted the newest code yet.

> There are some devices that trip GFCIs

In Germany where I lived for the past decade I have never seen a non-faulty device trip a RCB. The ones that tripped it hat the full 230V on their metal case.

I've got three examples for ya.

1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit).

2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI, so it gets plugged into a dedicated TT-30 RV outlet without GFCI protection.

3. My Tesla doesn't like GFCIs at all. It does a brief ground check before charging and trips the outlet. Known issue, solution is to find an outlet that isn't protected by a GFCI. In a pinch, when I was renting my first Tesla from Turo I stole the freezer outlet in the garage for a few hours at a time to charge the car. When I bought my own Tesla, I put in level 2 of course, problem solved.

I'm all for GFCIs on individual circuits, that makes total sense. Just not on the mains.

My brand new Samsung fridge has tripped the upstream GFCI since day 1. Called an electrician, and he just moved it off the upstream circuit and called it a day

I know many (european) electricians that would label that a wreckless action. It would also be illegal over here.

Weirdly enough Samsung fridges work over here without tripping RCDs.

Now i'm a little confused, I think i have a global one of these in my house. I don't think there is a power point that isn't protected by one of these earth leakage type devices (I think they are called different things in Australia). They have been standard for a long, long time.

How do telsas charge in Australia ?

My Vitamix blender keeps tripping the GFCI breaker. (My panel was upgraded a few years back.)

My kitchen's circuits are to code (as far as I know). I've asked Vitamix themselves and on various forums (eg r/homeimprovement) about how to fix this. No joy so far.

There are device testers where you can check if the PE resistance and isolation resistance of your mixer are within spec. If not, it is a broken device.

The grid, wiring, connectors etc can also be tested.

In Germany any company is required to have external contracters carry out these tests every 24 months due to work safety laws, this test is called DGUV and I think there is an ISO equivalent. If you ever have an electrician over that is worth their money they should be able to carry out those tests.

1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit)

Guess when the compressor kicks on you get sharp current spikes in units that do nothing to prevent that from hitting the grid.

> 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI, so it gets plugged into a dedicated TT-30 RV outlet without GFCI protection.

I don't know if this is an english word, but in German this known under the term selectivity. You cannot just put any RCD behind any RCD, you must select them specifically to have the downstream one trip first (otherwise, what is the use of having two in a row)?

3. My Tesla doesn't like GFCIs at all. It does a brief ground check before charging and trips the outlet. Known issue, solution is to find an outlet that isn't protected by a GFCI. In a pinch, when I was renting my first Tesla from Turo I stole the freezer outlet in the garage for a few hours at a time to charge the car. When I bought my own Tesla, I put in level 2 of course, problem solved.

Might be an issue with the wiring or the connector (some current is flowing where it should not flow), but it could also just be a broken GFCI.

selectivity is an English word. I usually hear it in the context of describing the bandwidth of a radio receiver system (how well the receiver can select signals of interest and reject others)

Filter caps in SMPSs can cause enough fault current to flow to trip your RCD if you have enough of them. The same with MOVs for surge protection that comes standard in many devices now (they are also capacitors when below the threshold voltage). With so many devices using SMPSs and having built in surge protection, the only sensible way forward is having RCBOs instead of MCBs on individual circuits. AFAIK, this is already becoming standard in some countries.

Ive never even heard of a 5mA GFCI. In Sweden afaik 30mA is the standard, and I assume much less likely to be tripped up by tiny faults.

Also, a GFCI install here is a simple and cheap affair. Does not require checking everything else or inspection or upgrading of fuse boxes or consumer unit.

In the US, 5mA is nominally for protection of personnel and 30mA is for protection of equipment.

We don’t have the fancy GFCI classes and selectivity that Europe seems to use.