We had the kitchen rewired a couple of years ago when we replaced the fuse box with a circuit breaker panel. There is a GFI receptacle on a four-receptacle outlet. (One pair has the GFI buttons, the other doesn’t.) The refrigerator is also on that circuit, plugged into a outlet behind the refrigerator. Those are the only outlets on that side of the kitchen. The outlet we can get to (i.e., not behind the fridge) is used to power the range hood, the coffee pot, the toaster, and the can opener. Due to the ad hoc nature of the additions to this 84-year-old house, the kitchen is dark; so we usually have the stove hood lamp on. The coffee pot is on a lot. The toaster and can opener are only occasionally used. The outlet is nowhere near the sink.
The GFI has taken to tripping for no apparent reason. We lost power three times in a short period Sunday night, and temperatures (outside) have been in the 20s. Twice, the power went out and then came back on within seconds. The third time, it stayed out for over half an hour. It was the day after the outage that the GFI outlet started tripping.
Am I correct that the GFI outlet needs to be replaced?
It seems to me that you should at least consider the possibility that one of the things you have plugged in has an actual ground fault. Maybe the outlet is working as designed.
I dunno. The one time I assumed that, I was wrong. I replaced heat-tape on a waterline in our barn. It was a big job and when I plugged the new tape in the outlet tripped. I replaced the outlet and all was good.
When I told an electrician I know this story he laughed and told me it was usually the outlet, they have a high failure rate.
Absolutely replace the GFI first. It’s cheap & easy, and they absolutely do die.
Is the refrigerator actually protected by the GFI, or just on the same circuit breaker on the GFI? Fridges don’t need to be GFI protected, and motors starting up (like a compressor) can cause nuisance trips on a GFI.
It’s not supposed to be rocket surgery, but apparently I’m an idiot. I bought a new outlet. I studied the instructions. I studied the way the old one was wired. I installed the new one. As soon as I switched the breaker back on, the GFCI tripped. I tried resetting. No joy. I tried putting the old one, which had been working although it would trip after a few hours, back in. It tripped as soon as I turned the breaker on.
Nothing to do now but to call the electrician and spend a hundred bucks for something any non-idiot should be able to do. :rolleyes:
That is not legal anymore.
Current electric code requires that refrigerators be on a separate, dedicated circuit of their own. (And that shouldn’t be GFCI – refrigerators commonly trigger GFCIs when starting up.)
Your circuit may be grandfathered-in, allowing it to stay. But while you have the electrician there, ask him about running a separate circuit for the refrigerator. He may give you a good price, since he’s already there. And you get more benefit for the trip charge that’s going to be on your bill.
Color me idiot as well. I spent quite awhile diagnosing things and could not replace the GFI outlet. It never would work. So I called an electrician and he figured out that it was a short in the most downstream outlet, fixed that, and then fixed my screwed up GFI. And yes, after I got finished there were two problems on the line, instead of one. I hate working with stuff that flows, either electricity or water.
I had a similar call from a tenent during the last big snow storm. They reported that the GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) had popped while they were out of town for a couple days. Of course the refrigerator was on that north wall circuit. When I arrived, she told me that same GFCI had popped several times over the last two weeks. And that the GFCI on the south wall had started popping after they had bought a brand new blender. Hmmmm? Two seperate circuits acting wonky in the last week? (And why didn’t they call me sooner?)
I used a circuit tester to see if all of the outlets were wired correctly, and used a digital VOM to check the voltage. All outlets were OK, and they all read 121 vdc. With two circuits acting odd, I next went to the line side single point of contact, the breaker box. It’s hidden in a bedroom closet behind sliding doors, so I had the tenent remove “some” clothes so I could access the panel. I’ve never seen so many clothes hanging in a 9 foot closet. She removed four arm-loads of clothes which barely gave me enough room to work. The first thing I noticed was that the breaker box door was wet. Not a good sign. I didn’t see any water damage to the ceiling, or walls, only that the panel door was wet. And cold. There was no evidence of water inside the box.
After wiping down the door, and crossing my fingers, I began tripping breakers to verify which circuits I was looking for. I then tripped the main, unscrewed the panel cover, and pulled the two breakers out. The buss bar was corroded as were the breaker’s connectors. I replaced both breakers, and used emory cloth wrapped on tounge depressors to clean the buss bar. Decided to pull all of the breakers and clean the entire buss bar while I was in there. Put everything back together, reset the main, and haven’t had any electrical problems since.
I’m assuming that the extremely cold weather, reduced or lack of insulation between the breaker box and the outside wall, the complete lack of air circulation inside the closet, and fluctuating commercial power during the cold weather, caused the damp corrosion and was triggering the CFCIs to pop. Since the blender was never in use when the CFCI popped, I assume that was a red herring. I also asked them to leave the closet doors open a few inches, especially during very cold weather. I hope this helps. Good Luck.
I read the original post as the utility dropped out resetting automatically 2 times and the 3rd time they stay out until a manual reset is done, so that would have nothing to do with the GFI, however, the fridge may not start again if it was running when power was lost without a couple minuets to bleed down compressor. Hopefully it wasn’t damaged, but they can be and a brownout is common with outages.
This isn’t true by the NEC. 210.52(B) requires 20 amp service to circuits serving kitchen areas, unless it’s a dedicated refrigerator circuit, in which case it can be 15 amp. Local codes may differ, of course.
Turns out I had the Line and Load wires switched. The black wires looked like black wires, and the white wires looked like white wires. I put the new outlet in, while the electrician watched.