my gfci was tripping all the time eveytime i turned my spa on, so i narrowed it down to the heater cause the gfci would not trip if the heater was disconnected. but the all the sudden that way (heater disconnected) quit powering it up as well, so i look inside the box and take off the cover of the gfci box and there is a black thing push button switch looking thing with a button in the middle of it. i press and hold the button down and the spa comes on, i let it go i loose power to everything, the black push button switch thing (before the gfci in the circuit) i think is called a gfci connector and my question is, is this thing bad (broke)? should i replace the whole box? this part is made by a company named "furnace" and i'm having a hard time finding the switch. oh by the way cal spa gave me a free new heater unit and it has two extra wires on it then the old one? what are they for?

It would seem, by the description of your problem, that you have a smaller gfi breaker, and a contactor. What the setup does is eliminate the need for a double pole 50A single gfi breaker, and get by with a small 20A single pole breaker and a contactor. The thing you are pressing is the contactor. When you push that in, you are bypassing the gfi protection completely. I would replace the whole unit with one of todays spa panels, which includes a 50A gfi breaker, and see if that just doesn't fix your problem. It does sound like the gfi went bad (tripping off many times will weaken any breaker). As far as the extra 2 wires, they are likely to be a temperature sensor, but I am not sure.

i did just that and fixed it. thanks