[RyanN]

Originally Posted by squirrel

I thought the breakers were there to protect the wires....????

If there is 12 gage wire from the breaker to the outlet, then I would replace the GFCI outlet with a new 20 amp GFCI outlet, connected (line side) to the wires from the breaker box, and connect all the loads to the load side of the outlet.

This assumes also that the wires in the box are all ok still.

This is how it was done, except there was a weak spot on the load side. From the breaker is the standard 3 wire solid core going to the outlet box, then connected directly to the GFCI outlet. From the load side is one of the blue ring connectors that is crimped on the 16AWG wire that then goes to a wire cap that supplies the rest of the load. The 16AWG wire is a major weak spot as it is the smallest wire on the circuit and it takes most of the load of the circuit subtracting the GFCI outlet's load.