[lpailer72]

I had some outdoor receptacles recently installed and would like to know if it is proper to put a GFIC breaker in the panel for this circuit and will it protect the receptacles from shorting instead of putting a GFIC receptacle in the circuit?

[tkrussell]

A GFI breaker will handle 3 tasks:
1.Overcurrent protection, or too much load on that circuit.
2.Short circuit protection, or unintentional connection of hot and neutral or equipment ground wires.
3.Ground fault protection of the entire circuit, or unintentional connection of hot to to any path other than the neutral.

When using a GFI receptacle, the regular breaker still does #1 and #2 through the entire circuit, and the receptacle offers #3 for that outlet and the circuit and outlets downstream from the GFI receptacle.

Hope this makes sense.