What Your TripTrace GFI Health Score Means
The safety-flag override in TripTrace is deliberately category-independent: if you check a serious symptom like visible sparking or a burning smell, the tool leads with a call-an-electrician recommendation regardless of what the underlying score says.
How the score is built
Each symptom you select contributes weighted points to one or more of the six categories. The category with the highest total becomes your leading diagnosis, and the overall score reflects how clearly your specific combination of symptoms points there versus being spread across multiple plausible causes.
Why a lower score isn't necessarily bad news
A lower or more split score often just means your symptoms are genuinely ambiguous between two categories — for example, intermittent tripping can plausibly stem from either an aging device or a wiring fault. In that case, TripTrace's fix plan will suggest the cheapest, safest diagnostic step first (like a plug-in circuit tester) before assuming the more expensive explanation.
What the safety flags check for specifically
A handful of symptoms — visible sparking, a warm or discolored outlet, a burning smell, a combined GFCI-and-breaker trip, and known aluminum wiring — are treated as override conditions. Any of these produces an immediate 'call a licensed electrician now' recommendation at the top of your result, ahead of the category score.