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We have lived in our current house for three years. It was built in 1975 and the attached garage was added in 1987. Had an old Kenmoore freezer top refrigerator plugged into a GFCI circuit in the Garage since we moved in. The GFCI is the first outlet, regular outlets downstream. 15a GFCI on a 20A circuit. Never had a trip. The Kenmoore finally dies in early spring, replace it with an Whirlpool "estate" side by side that my neighbor gave me. Plugged it in and it cooled down. When it restarted cooling cycle it would trip the GFCI. I changed the start relay on the fridge and installed a new GFCI (20a). It has worked for about two months, maybe had one trip during a storm. Had a little weather this weekend and the GFCI tripped yesterday. I reset it and it ran for a few hours. Found out it tripped again this morning so I tried to reset but the GFCI would not reset. I unplugged the fridge and reset and GFCI did not trip. A deep freeze is on the same circuit and it was running. We unplugged the freezer and plugged in the fridge and still get the instant trip. I get an instant trip every time I plug in the Fridge. Is my Fridge wasted? A leaking ground fault sounds bad. Seems dangerous to plug into a regular outlet if I get an instant trip when it ran for weeks before.

Nomad-220
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  • Should GFCI outlets be used with a refrigerator? – isherwood Aug 08 '23 at 18:36
  • The only way to tell for sure is by testing. Older fridges and GFCIs can have trouble playing nice together, but older fridges can also develop ground or other faults. – crip659 Aug 08 '23 at 18:36
  • Having GFCIs one would assume an up to date electrical system with good ground or an older house with no/poor ground system and needs GFCIs for protection. The link given will be good for the house with good ground. If you can confirm which is which by editing your question, it will help. – crip659 Aug 08 '23 at 19:26
  • Did it trip for the neighbour? Ask them – Rohit Gupta Aug 08 '23 at 20:18
  • Thanks for commenting. No, my neighbor did not report any issues for it tripping for him. He previously used it as a kitchen fridge and not in the garage. I was having tripping issues when I first installed it but I thought I resolved them with the new start relay I installed in the fridge, and it ran for around two months without issue. – Nomad-220 Aug 08 '23 at 21:51
  • Both links seem to be helpful. If the house has a good ground system, placing the fridge on a non-GFCI receptacle seems to be safe. Just do not touch the fridge and an earth connected(pipes) at the same time. – crip659 Aug 08 '23 at 23:16

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