Garage fridge - happy in garage last 6 months, new build. Plugged into a GFCI outlet. Not a new fridge but a quality hand me down.
Now the GFCI keeps tripping and we lost a ton of food.
Builder's electrician said - you have to take it "out of building code" and off the GFCI outlet for it to work. OR purchase a brand new fridge. I don't like the options, but need your advice.

Another option is to find an outlet inside the house that shares a wall with the garage. Pretty simple to add an outlet in the garage off the interior circuit.

gabehcoud said:

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If you ever sell just leave the fridge where it is. No way in hell a inspector is going to move the fridge to get behind it & check.

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But if there are any outlets downstream he will check those and if they are no longer GFCI protected he will flag it.

got rid of mine out in the garage a while back as the electric gate (which was on that circuit) kept tripping it. Bye-bye

Electricians won't replace due to code. I think you can also replace the fuse in the fuse box as well. Vs removing all the plugs.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Another option is to find an outlet inside the house that shares a wall with the garage. Pretty simple to add an outlet in the garage off the interior circuit.

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This probably the best option. As others said, it can be challenging to make the one the fridge plugs into non gfci and keep the others protected with the way they run the circuits these days

Check to see if the GFCI outlet is flashing Red. I am in a new build and it was flashing vs just steady Red. They replaced the outlet, said it was bad. No issues for the last year on the new GFCI...

First one would trip, in a little as an hour, or sometimes would trip after a week or two...

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Another option is to find an outlet inside the house that shares a wall with the garage. Pretty simple to add an outlet in the garage off the interior circuit.

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Until you grab an AFCI protected circuit and then start having that nuisance trip.

Absolute said:

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Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Another option is to find an outlet inside the house that shares a wall with the garage. Pretty simple to add an outlet in the garage off the interior circuit.

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This probably the best option. As others said, it can be challenging to make the one the fridge plugs into non gfci and keep the others protected with the way they run the circuits these days

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"Should" have one in garage, garage ceiling, front door, back door, by condensing unit. Trick is finding the next one downstream from garage wall (with the fridge). Move the GFCI to the next one down.

I took my fridge off GFCI and I'll probably never put one on GFCI again. Almost lost a fridge of food. Not worth it.

Oh, I know how to do it. Just wasn't going to try to explain it. You can also wire the ones upstream of the fridge to just protect themselves, then the next one down to protect the circuit.

Funny how electrical code acts like all this protective tech is perfect in their implementation of the code. But it is far from it in reality.


Just wait for the complaining to start when they finally start enforcing having gfci protection on the ac condensers here in Texas. That will be a ****show.

Sea Speed said:

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. Almost lost a fridge of food. Not worth it.

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which is weird, because I've had multiple fridges/chest freezers in my garage in two different houses now for almost 20 years, and this has never happened to me.

I mean on a GFCI outlet, not a garage fridge.

TXCityGirl said:

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Garage fridge - happy in garage last 6 months, new build. Plugged into a GFCI outlet. Not a new fridge but a quality hand me down.
Now the GFCI keeps tripping and we lost a ton of food.
Builder's electrician said - you have to take it "out of building code" and off the GFCI outlet for it to work. OR purchase a brand new fridge. I don't like the options, but need your advice.

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I ran an orange extension cord to the outlet that the garage door opener was plugged into and plugged the freezer into that. Bypassed the GFCI and the outlet was high so it didn't require GFCI. It looked tacky, but it worked.

New build = now the garage door opener is GFCI protected as well.

UnderoosAg said:

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New build = now the garage door opener is GFCI protected as well.

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BOOOOO!!!!!

It is a 5-10 min job to swap the outlet so it's an easy fix. Keep in mind you may have to swap out any other GFCI on the same circuit. Only 1 per circuit is needed to protect it BUT it is entirely possible to have more than 1 GFCI outlet having been installed.

Ditch the gfci. In old days could put a single gang outlet behind an appliance and avoid the gfci requirement.
But for piece of mind i have been using mocreo sensors and wifi bridge to monitor refrigerators freezers, water heater and ice machine. Typically catch someone leaving a door adjar but its good just in case.

We like to have some kind of security light on in the garage. Back in the day, I just stuck a lamp on the GFCI circuit and left it on. If you walked into a pitch black garage, you know the GFCI tripped.

These days there are so many alarm options which covers the GFCI as well as any freezer failures.

But generally, GFIs on freezers is stupid.

UnderoosAg said:

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New build = now the garage door opener is GFCI protected as well.

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Why do you need to protect something mounted on the ceiling?

You would think you would need Ceiling Fault protection for that instead

dubi said:

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UnderoosAg said:

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New build = now the garage door opener is GFCI protected as well.

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Why do you need to protect something mounted on the ceiling?

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Once upon a time, the Karen concern was that someone would plug an extension cord, appliance, drill, sex toy, whatever into a receptacle and either there'd be water/moisture in the garage or they'd go use it in the front yard in the rain. If the receptacle was not accessible, e.g. behind a fridge or in the ceiling, Karen figured it was too much of a PITA for someone to get to it and plug in. Years ago Karen changed her mind and decided that all receptacles in the garage needed GFCI protection, regardless of location or accessibility. It isn't the opener which requires protection, it's the receptacle in the ceiling.

And yes, that's stupid.

dubi said:

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UnderoosAg said:

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New build = now the garage door opener is GFCI protected as well.

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Why do you need to protect something mounted on the ceiling?

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I have a retractable extension cord that is mounted on my ceiling and plugged into the ceiling receptacles.
So now that power is on the ground, outside.

Gotta think outside the box a bit!