Newly Installed GFCI trips immediately - Fridge is the cause?

[Bob K 207]

I own an older home (60's) that has undergone some remodelling (at least 4 previous owners).

All the bathrooms have GFCI outlets but the kitchen did not.

Potions of the house have been painted & I replaced the old GCFI's (ivory) with new white ones (my wife wanted them to match the paint).

I decided to use one of the old ivory GFCI's to protect the daisey chain of outlets in the kitchen. I installed the the CFCI but when I hotted the circuit it immediately tripped & would not reset.

I checked to make sure I had installed it correctly & also checked all the outlets with a circuit tester........everything ok.

I unplugged the fridge & the GFCI rest fine.

Plug in the fridge, the GFCI trips & will not reset.............fridge has a problem?

Suggestions?

cheers Bob

[Greg]

The fridge is bad. This is common. You can look at all the wiring in the back to be sure it isn't just a chafed wire but I bet it is current leakage in the sealed compressor. There are lots of urban legends about how there is some magic phase shift, "back EMF" or other hoopla in a fridge but a properly working one should NOT trip a GFCI.

[Joseph Meehan]

Easy way to check. Unplug the frig and turn on the GFCI.

[John Grabowski]

It is standard practice and acceptable by most code enforcement officials to NOT have the refrigerator protected by a GFI. If that GFI trips while you are away for a few days, you will come home to a fridge full of spoiled food. It is usually only the countertop receptacles and any receptacles within countertop range that require GFI protection. An outlet behind a refrigerator is not considered readily accessible.

Eliminate the GFI protection from the refrigerator receptacle. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that you may have a problem with your refrigerator.

John Grabowski

[m Ransley]

It is not recomended to put a frige on a GFI, this is common to trip older units. plus your food will rot if it trips.

[Chris Lewis]

According to John Grabowski :

Agreed. Shouldn't have a GFI on a refrigerator receptacle. It adds relatively little protection and major risk of defrost.

May have to switch that chain of receptacles over to multiple GFCI outlets so that the fridge on the end of the chain isn't protected.

If a GFCI instantaneously trips when you try to drive a fridge with it, you _do_ have a problem with the fridge. Fridges occasionally leak to the frame, but not enough to trip the breaker (or there's no ground and the frame is live). May be waiting for someone to be unwary enough to touch the fridge handle and the sink to go _zap_! I had a really old fridge with that problem - you could get a fairly healthy tingle off the frame...

If you get an instantaneous trip off a fridge, especially when the compressor doesn't "want to start", some diagnostics are in order. Eg: use a DVM on ohms, and look for _any_ continuity between hot and ground or neutral and ground. It's sometimes possible to "fix" this. Ie: worn cables.

[Art]

Shouldn't have GFI on fridge but a good place to look for fridge problem is door hinge. Often there are recalls because of wiring going bad there.

[Greg]

Read the original note again. He did that.

BTW don't expect the exemption for the fridge on the GFCI to last forever. It has already gone away for commercial kitchens. ALL 15 & 20a 120v receptacles must be GFCI.The trend is going that way in residential kitchens too. It used to just be the receptacles near the sink, now it is all receptacles serving any countertop. I imagine soon it will also be "all".

[HA HA Budys Here]

Yes, because Lord knows how many thousands of innocents have been KILLED due to current leakage through their fridge, microwave, exhaust hood, dishwasher, compactor, disposal, instant-hot, and the built-in desktop.

One day the NEC is going to regulate itself right out of business.

[George E. Cawthon]

[Alan]

Yes, a good idea to have the fridge on a separate circuit.

[Bob K 207]

Thank you to all who replied.

I'll do seperate GFCI's for each accessible outlet, leave the fridge on a non-GFCI outlet (or run a seperate circuit for it) & I'll see if I can diagonse the fridge ground fault

cheers Bob