[freeagent]

What you have is a Multi Wire Branch Circuit ("split receptacle") which are common in Canada and, as far as I know, still approved. If you take a close look at the connecting screw plate on the black/red side, you will notice that the little tab joining the two parts of the connector plate has been broken off, meaning you have separate 15a feeds to each socket in the receptacle fed by the two hot (red/black) conductors.

Yes, that is the way they are.

As far as I know, you cannot install a GFCI receptacle in a MWBC by others may well call me wrong. I believe you can connect one hot to a GFCI then carry the other hot to a second GFCI, but you would lose the benefit of the split circuit (double 15a capacity per receptacle).

I am installing two GFCIs, one on each side of sink. Each has it's own 3wire+G circuit fed from panel. Seems I have two choices:

Use the red as hot on one receptacle and the black on the other while disabling the spare hot. That eliminates the double 15A but never knew we had it anyway

OR

Feed them both off same breaker (red to one GFCI, black to the other) and disconnect the other breaker altogether. Provides a spare although I don't have a need at present.

 

[freeagent]

I think either should work but others smarter than I may chime in.

Attached from the Electrical Safety Authority:

file:///C:/Users/family/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/Q2E05WKI/14-02-FL.pdf

That link didn't work, but I found it anyway:

https://www.esasafe.com/assets/files/esasafe/pdf/Flash_Notices/14-02-FL.pdf

Seems in Fig F3 that they want to have both GFCIs on same circuit? Why would they want an extra outlet added in that way?

 

[freeagent]

not code.
That receptacle should be fed from a double pole 15 amp breaker. The only code way is to install a double pole GFCI breaker.
Or you can leave it as is. It is grandfathered.

Leaving as is is the easy option!

However, the link above to the code "Flash" says it can be done as in diagram below. Seeing we have two duplex outlets and they can be fed from one double pole breaker, wouldn't hooking them up like that meet the code? (We would of course have two 3-wire cables but only using the red & neutral in one and black & neutral in other.

 

[freeagent]

Are they currently fed from one double pole or two double breakers?

Kitchen code originally called for a minimum of three split wired circuits in the kitchen. You can not combine two circuits into one and still be code.

At present, as you can see in picture in first post, the two existing split receptacles (next to sink) are fed from the two upper double pole breakers. The lower double pole breaker feeds another split receptacle on opposite side of kitchen. There is another counter receptacle plus three others for fridge, microwave and dishwasher. Have to check if any of them are split - probably not.

It's a bit confusing!

 

[freeagent]

So it's one breaker per receptacle. You can't use that F3 option.
Here is the reasoning. When you have two receptacle on one breaker you have two plug in spots per 15 amp leg. If you put a GFCI on red and one one on black, you would still have two receptacles per 15 amp leg. When you only have one receptacle per double breaker if you put a GFCI on just the red then you lose the capacity of the whole other 15 amp circuit.

Trying to get my head around that!

You said Code says we should have at least 3 split receptacles. In other words, 6 15A sockets we could plug into (in our case coming off 3 15A double pole breakers.)

One of our split receptacles is not near sinks and will remain. So have to deal with the two at sink where we are told we should have GFCIs.

We could perhaps combine the two sink outlet circuits and feed them off one double pole breaker as per Fig F3. We end up with same total of 6 sockets we can plug into. Does code consider the double GFCI per Fig F3 then equivalent to a just one single split receptacle?

If above is true, then so long as we have yet one more split receptacle, we would meet the code? We do have two more duplex receptacles at counter level but because they come off main fuse panel, need checking to see if they are split. Do they need to be splits if there are two?

This is an old house that has had several electrical changes/upgrades, so I want to try and understand just what we have before making additional changes!

 

[freeagent]

With three split wired receptacles you have a total of six 15 circuits to share the loads. Your proposal to combine two receptacles would leave you with only four 15 amp circuits.
Your only two options are to leave as is or replace the the breakers with double pole GFCI.
There is a third option but I don't think you will like that one either. You could rewire both circuits with 12/2 cable, install single pole 20 amp breakers and the use 20 amp T slot GFCI receptacles.

I just checked and we do have one more split duplex counter outlet that is fed off our fuse panel (2x15A fuses). So even with sink outlets combined, we would still have two more split outlets. So total of 6 15A circuits (Plus one non-split receptacle at counter shared with one light and two hidden wall plugs for fridge & dishwasher)

So any reason not to combine the sink GFCI circuits per Fig F3?

PS: Have another GFCI question re bathroom, but will start separate thread.

 

[freeagent]

Thanks for your usual great input!

I am going to try and draw up a schematic for our house. Electrician would have to spend at least 1/2 a day figuring out what goes where.