Safest way to plug in my fridge.

Factual Questions
1

Okay, so I rent a house that was built in 1957. The house itself is not grounded so the only 3-prong outlets are the GFIs. My fridge doesn’t fit on the wall near the GFI in the kitchen but the outlet where it does fit is the only one on the circuit without a GFI. The way I see it, my choices are an adapter (which is the current solution), run an extension cord, or install another GFI.

I’m here for another year but any changes in the electrical for the sake of my fridge are on me. What is the safest, and last expensive, thing to do?

2

GFI are extremely useful, and required for new construction, where you might have an appliance plugged in and you can touch the sink or range. not as important for a large appliance as a fridge.

also some GFI may trip off when things like a large motor (such as in fridge or freezer) start, this would leave those shut off which is not good.

3

Since you are just renting, I would probably just continue using the adapter if I were you. You can install a GFCI if it makes you feel better, but there’s a decent chance you’ll end up with nuisance trips like johnpost said. An extension cord may get you to another GFCI, but then you’ve got the extension cord in the circuit and those are prone to failure, which is one of the main reasons they invented AFCIs.

The proper fix is to run a new circuit dedicated to the fridge and another new circuit for the microwave. These aren’t required to be on separate circuits by code but common practice puts microwaves and large appliances on their own circuit so that they don’t end up tripping breakers when used simultaneously. Doing this would not only get GFCIs in the proper place but would also add proper grounding. I suspect that your existing GFCIs might not be grounded (don’t worry, they’ll still work even if they aren’t).

Doing it the proper way is by far the most expensive option though. I personally wouldn’t put anywhere near that much money into a place I am just renting. Just leave it on the adapter and don’t worry about it.

4

Thank you both for your help! We haven’t had the breaker trip where the fridge is with the adapter so we are leaving it as it is and was suggested. If we owned the house, we would consider updating the wiring.

Thanks again!