NA - Basement Fridge Kicking Breaker

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86Aviator

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We just built a new house and have a second fridge (also brand new) in our unfinished walkout basement. We had this "basement fridge" in our kitchen for about a month while we waited on the prettier one bought for the kitchen to show up off of backorder before having the basement fridge moved to its permanent home downstairs. We never had any issues with it before, but now that it is in the basement, it kicks the breaker. Not immediately, but usually within an hour or so.

There are two outlets in the basement on the relevant circuit, but the fridge is the only thing plugged in. They're GFCI outlets because it is an unfished basement (at least, according to our electrical plan).

I had the electrician come out yesterday to replace the outlet and the breaker. The fridge ran fine for about 10 hours, but finally kicked the breaker around 9 pm last night (after I said "hey, this is finally fixed!" and moved my stockpile of craft...water...into it). I reset the breaker and it was kicked again by 10. Now my bottles of craft water are warm again. :(

Any ideas? I would never, ever dream of replacing the GFCI with a standard outlet since that would presumably violate building code in our area, but it seems from the internet that fridges and GFCIs do not a happy union make. I guess there's a chance the fridge itself has a problem, but it seems less likely. It's brand new, so there's no dust built up yet. There's no ice maker (which I've read can cause problems) and no water anywhere near it. I've also plugged it into one of the outlets upstairs with a heavy duty drop cord and it ran fine for several hours without kicking that breaker (and it worked fine when in our kitchen).

The electrician is coming back tomorrow and my guess is that he's going to shrug instead of problem solve. Anyone run into this before and/or know how to fix it?
 
I’m only an occasional holiday inn customer, but my first thought is a poor ground connection somewhere between the outlet box and breaker box.

Also, does replacing the GFCI violate code? I’d probably just quietly do it myself and be done with it. Not like it would be expensive to switch back if you ever sell the house.
 
Tripping the breaker or the GFCI?

My band saw likes to trip the GFCI when I turn it on...
 
When I was doing electrical work a dedicated receptacle for a fridge or freezer in the garage did not have to be GFCI. And as you’ve discovered, should not be. Codes may have changed though. It’s been a while.
 
I see that there are now GFCI breakers that are also arc fault circuit interrupters (ACFI). If that new breaker is one of them, and that old fridge has a relay that arcs when opening or closing, that breaker might not like that.
 
Thanks, guys. As I understand it from the orientation we received from our builder, the "new" type of GFCI outlets do not have the reset switch directly on the face of the outlet as has always been the case, rather everything is built into the breaker itself. Same story in our kitchen and bathrooms - all the usual places one would expect to find a GFCI outlet. So tripping the breaker and tripping the GFCI is practically one and the same, but it's not possible for a layman (or, at least, me) to discern whether the issue is an actual ground fault or something else.

I'm hoping there is a code workaround for a dedicated outlet to not be a GFCI - that's what I'm going to ask the electrician to install tomorrow.

The bandsaw issue noted above is consistent with what I've gleaned from the internet so far - electric motors (as opposed to things like lightbulbs and toasters that work off of resistance) seem to have enough of a lag in the circuit when they power on or off to trigger a GFCI - apparently, it is the same type of reaction that would occur in a ground fault where someone is being electrocuted. An electrical engineer or about anyone else could probably explain that better than I can, but that's in substance what I've read as to why those types of devices do not get along well with GFCIs.
 
I had this problem about 10 years ago when we moved into our current house. Previous owners left a fridge so we ended up with two. Moved one to the garage to use as a beer fridge. But the garage was wired with a GFCI breaker and the fridge would trip it constantly. My solution was to pull the GFCI breaker out of the panel and replace it with standard. Then through trail/error I found the first outlet in the circuit which happened to be in the 1/2 bath near the garage. I changed that outlet with new GFCI outlet and reconnected everything. Bathroom and garage outlets are still GFCI protected but fridge runs fine now.
 
Dan Thomas said:
I see that there are now GFCI breakers that are also arc fault circuit interrupters (ACFI). If that new breaker is one of them, and that old fridge has a relay that arcs when opening or closing, that breaker might not like that.
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@86Aviator, pay attention to this message. The only fault I can find in it is that you said it was a new, not an old, fridge. But if it is a newly built example of a now-obsolete model, then damn-howdy it is a viable theory.

-Skip
 
My garage fridge started tripping the GFCI. My garage has three outlets and all three were wired together where the “master” was a CFGI. Every time the compressor kicked on that CFGI outlet would trip. That fridge worked for a lot of years so I figured it might be that CFGI. I replaced it but the problem kept repeating. I ended up replacing all three outlets so that 2 are dedicated CFGI and the third is not, and that’s the one with the fridge.
 
I have an older freezer that does not like GFCIs. I found that out after I plugged it into a newly installed circuit in my basement. I swapped out the GGCI for a standard one, and all is good.

If you have a GFCI breaker, the only fix is to change that out.
 
My master electrician next door will tell you they wear out and many are bad out of the box…also for things like this not necessary if you have a real breaker box…sort of why you have it. Then again his nickname is Sparky. Early in life he was a lineman who was blown off a power pole with 240K volts that was back fed when he was working on it and should never have survived…scars and other issues from being electrocuted and brought back to life…so consider my source.
 
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You're spending a lot on an electrician for something that's really easy to do yourself. Yes you need to learn a little and be careful, but you're a pilot, you can do this!

Changing an outlet is a total of 6 screws (one for the cover plate, two for the outlet, three for the connections), costs less than $1 and takes about 5 minutes.

Changing a circuit breaker is more expensive but takes about the same amount of time.

I'd at least try them both and see if either solves the problem. Then you can decide if you want to leave it as-is or further fix the problem.
 
86Aviator said:
The bandsaw issue noted above is consistent with what I've gleaned from the internet so far - electric motors (as opposed to things like lightbulbs and toasters that work off of resistance) seem to have enough of a lag in the circuit when they power on or off to trigger a GFCI
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Funny thing is that it's just the band saw. Not the drill press, miter saw, jointer, grinder, table saw, planer, disk sander, dust collector, or any of the portable power tools.
 
Thanks very much, everyone. Sounds like the consensus is that we need to get the fridge off of a GFCI one way or the other. I'll report back. The good news is that the builder is, for the moment, still picking up the tab for the electrician since they're characterizing it as a construction defect. If there's a charge to switch the outlet to a non-GFCI, I'm going to look long and hard at doing the work myself. YouTube makes it look pretty easy, even for someone like me who is considerably less handy than the average homeowner.
 
Warlock said:
My master electrician next door will tell you the wear out and many are bad out of the box…also for things like this not necessary if you have a real breaker box…sort of why you have it. Then again his nickname is Sparky. Early in life he was a lineman who was blown off a power pole with 240K volts that was back fed when he was working on it and should never have survived…scars and other issues from being electrocuted and brought back to life…so consider my source.
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While the age of the GFCI outlets might not the cause of the OP's problems, it is worth reminding people that the outlets do have an effective service life.
 
Dedicated basement freezer outlet, non-gfci, installed prior to the new code. Single outlet with a retainer on the plug prevents anything else from using that outlet.IMG_20220308_160536536.jpg
 
Zeldman said:
You have the wrong beer in the fridge and it is trying to tell you...:lol:
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Clearly, it's not a fan of Voodoo Ranger or Southern Tier!

@biplanebob that is a thing of beauty. That's exactly what I want to have done tomorrow if at all possible.

@Juliet Hotel I saw the electrician with one of those the other day. I didn't realize they were so cheap to pick up. On my list!
 
86Aviator said:
Thanks, guys. As I understand it from the orientation we received from our builder, the "new" type of GFCI outlets do not have the reset switch directly on the face of the outlet as has always been the case, rather everything is built into the breaker itself. Same story in our kitchen and bathrooms - all the usual places one would expect to find a GFCI outlet. So tripping the breaker and tripping the GFCI is practically one and the same, but it's not possible for a layman (or, at least, me) to discern whether the issue is an actual ground fault or something else.
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Minor clarification, but if the GFCI is built into the breaker rather than the outlet, you have a GFCI breaker, not a GFCI outlet. You have GFCI-protected outlets. Nowadays, many of those breakers are combos with arc-fault protection as well. And they all wear out, and even when new create problems like you have. Just have them put in a normal breaker and odds are you'll be fine....
 
Common problem. Theoretically it should work but for some reason the equipment doesn't read the physics books.

If the electrician can't install a dedicated non-gfci circuit for the fridge, have him just install a dedicated circuit with a GFCI breaker and wait for the breaker-fairy to make it's rounds (yes, I know you will kill an innocent child doing that, you will also cause the house to burn down and a train full of investment bankers to derail due to the smoke).
 
Flop the breaker for a regular one- problem solved. They don’t send re-inspectors around.
 
Lindberg said:
Just have them put in a normal breaker and odds are you'll be fine....
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If a GFCI/arc-fault breaker was used, its probably required by code. In which case swapping out the breaker for a standard one without doing anything else would violate code. You might have a hard time finding an electrician that will be willing to do that for you.

Obviously nothing would stop you from doing that work yourself or even finding a handy friend who would be willing to do the work for you. At that point your risk exposure is your insurance company denying a claim if your house burns because investigation reveals the illegal circuit was a factor, or you go to sell the house and the sale gets sidetracked because the inspection reveals the house wiring does not meet code.
 
The GFCI portion doesn't protect your house from burning down. It protects YOU against killing yourself by using a corded power drill while standing barefoot in ankle deep water in your basement.

As for the 'failing inspection' part on sale. Just keep the GFCI breaker as a spare in the box that the non-GFCI version came in. When you get the house ready for sale, swap in the GFCI breaker and wa-laah, you code compliant (and the inspector will hold up the sale over the life safety issue of a broken window lift-spring or a fogged up window pane).
 
Just tossing it out because I didn't notice it mentioned - if it's tripping the GFI, it could be that something is wrong with the fridge. The fridge shouldn't be leaking enough current to ground to trip a GFI. As an example, a breakdown in insulation of a motor, or some component that they might be using for filtering. That's potentially dangerous, especially in a basement, because if the ground connection is also screwed up, it represents a shock hazard. If the AFI part is tripping, though, that could just be because AFI's kinda suck. To test it, you could try running through an outlet that just has GFI, no AFI.

GFI's protect against shock. Critical in damp areas, or around kids or dim adults. AFI's protect a bit against crappy wiring, and against situations where there are things around outlet and connected devices that shouldn't be, like bedding. Part of the reason for AFI's is safety, part is that there are electrical industry reps on the code board.

Dedicated outlets for fixed appliances are a good thing most of the time, and in some versions of code, and posibly in some localities, do not require GFI/AFI. If the washer/driver/freezer/fridge is wired wrong, like open ground and grounded neutral, a GFI might be a good thing. But if the appliance is built right and installed correctly it's not a safety issue.
 
Anecdotal side note:I completely rewired my shop a few years ago. I installed all new circuits to power the wall outlets. I did not install any GFCI breakers because local code did not require it. But all of the wall outlet breakers I put in were Arc-fault breakers because code required it. I've had zero issues with my table saw or miter saw or band saw because of the arc-fault breakers.
.
 
FWIW, I bought a new refrigerator for our kitchen a couple of weeks ago. The manual specifically says that it should be plugged into a dedicated, non GFCI outlet.
 
Just swap out the GFCI for non-GFCI for that outlet. Project done before you can even finish one of the "craft waters". My garage had GFCI outlets on both wall circuits that would trip with my air compressor kicking on. Swapped out the GFCI outlet with a standard outlet and no issues at all for years. I make sure to use that non-GFCI circuit when I run my table saw as well.
 
GFCI with arc-fault protection won't like motors. They make sparks, and that spark waveform is what trips the breaker or receptacle. Serious-wound motors (drills, skilsaws and the like) make sparks at their brushes. Induction motors (bigger tools like drill presses and tablesaws and compressors) have a starting circuit in the motor fired by a switch that is opened after the RPM comes up, and it sparks due to the inductance of the start winding. The breaker doesn't like that. A fridge likely has that same problem.

Some cheap tablesaws I've seen are little more than a skilsaw bolted under a table. Series-wound motors.
 
Dana said:
FWIW, I bought a new refrigerator for our kitchen a couple of weeks ago. The manual specifically says that it should be plugged into a dedicated, non GFCI outlet.
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You read the instructions on how to plug in the fridge.??

Of course you realize that we as men consider instructions as just another man's opinion... :lol::lol:
 
Dana said:
FWIW, I bought a new refrigerator for our kitchen a couple of weeks ago. The manual specifically says that it should be plugged into a dedicated, non GFCI outlet.
Click to expand...

You monster ! You read the manual for a piece of equipment that you purchased !
 
Juliet Hotel said:
If a GFCI/arc-fault breaker was used, its probably required by code. In which case swapping out the breaker for a standard one without doing anything else would violate code. You might have a hard time finding an electrician that will be willing to do that for you.

Obviously nothing would stop you from doing that work yourself or even finding a handy friend who would be willing to do the work for you. At that point your risk exposure is your insurance company denying a claim if your house burns because investigation reveals the illegal circuit was a factor, or you go to sell the house and the sale gets sidetracked because the inspection reveals the house wiring does not meet code.
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The NEC used to exempt dedicated appliance circuits in basements from the GFCI requirement, but that exemption was removed. My understanding is that was not due to any risk of fires or the risk when actually used with appliances, but due to the risk of there being something else plugged into that "dedicated" circuit at some point and someone electrocuting himself. I believe this is why hardwired appliances are still exempted. IANAE & YMMV.
 
Zeldman said:
You read the instructions on how to plug in the fridge.??

Of course you realize that we as men consider instructions as just another man's opinion... :lol::lol:
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I'm ashamed.

In my defense, I was only looking for the information on required clearances for a built in installation, better than ripping out a new cabinet because it overheats.
 
Get outlet tester and look for wrong ground, neutral. Look at the breaker, is there any indicator signal to interpret when it resets? Know all the devices are on that circuit are there too many, are they all connected at one point? ? Open the breaker and inspect each of the junction boxes to look for overheated anythings, make sure the outlet feed wires are clamped under the screw and not in the push in connection. Get a cheap insulation tester and make sure none of the wiring has marginal insulation.
 
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