Deep Freezer Reset

[Nga Sagastume]

Mythought was that as the door had only been open a fraction there was a good chance most if not all the stuff in the freezer had remained frozen even if not at the -18 deg C necessary for a deep freeze. To my relief almost everything was still frozen, we decided to throw a couple of bits of meat that were up at the front of the draws which had an outside chance of having deforested but everything else was still good and frozen.

The solution is very simple. Switch the freezer off and leave it for 15 minutes to let any of the cooling fluid drain down to the bottom of the freezer. Open the door to the freezer and remove as best you can any covers of the front of the cooling element. I was unable to fully remove the cover on ours but I could open it enough for the next step. Get a hair dryer and play hot air over the front of the cooling element to quickly melt the ice that has formed there. Let the cooling element cool to about room temperature and then close the door and switch the freezer back on. If all has gone to plan your freezer will now be able to effectively circulate cool air through the freezer and it will be down to temperature in a few hours.

This photo shows me removing screws that secure the front cover. I needed to use a torx driver and discovered a gorilla had put the screws in. You can just make out some of the ice creeping out from the cold air vents.

Unable to get the cover complete off I propped it open with part of a baby bottle (I think). You can clearly see the block of ice that had formed and the cooling elements embedded in it. At this point I had already given it a blast with the hair dryer. When I first opened it the cooling elements were nowhere to be seen!

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The green power light should be solid and not blinking. If your chest freezer lights are blinking, reset them by disconnecting power to the freezer for 30 seconds. Once you reconnect power, if they are still blinking, service will be required.

My refrigerator is tripping the GFCI on the socket into which it is plugged. Searching about this topic seems to indicate that this is a reasonably common complaint. However, I can't find any concrete information about general causes or potential solutions other than suggestions to replace everything and hope for the best; this seems unsatisfying.

This is a new fridge and all new electrical work by licensed professionals. I believe that the electrical is installed correctly and grounded, and that there is no damage to the fridge. I believe this is a dedicated circuit from the breaker panel to the outlet for the fridge. Nothing else is on this circuit and nothing else is plugged into the other socket. Low humidity. Kitchen installation. No water, no ice-maker. This has never happened before, but now it trips the GFCI immediately after reset.

EDIT: per comment below, I should also note that I called the service line for the manufacturer: they said only that, if the appliance works when plugged into a non-GFCI outlet, that there's nothing more they can do.

To me, this seems to suggest the fridge is broken -- but it's brand new! Why would my fridge be tripping the GFCI? Is this to be expected for a refrigerator? Should I just plug it into non-GFCI and ignore it "like any normal person"? ;-)

Several other questions on this site suggest solutions for other GFCI issues, but I don't see any about refrigerators and GFCI. This answer seems to suggest that refrigerators shouldn't be on GFCI in the first place. However, my electrician said it's now code to have refrigerator's on GFCI (at least locally), but there seems to be disagreement about The Rules.

In a dwelling unit (residential), GFCI protection is only required for kitchen receptacles that serve the countertop surfaces. There's no requirement to GFCI protect receptacles that serve a refrigerator. Unless the fridge is plugged into a countertop receptacle.

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for Personnel. Ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel shall be provided as required in 210.8(A) through (C). The ground-fault circuit-interrupter shall be installed in a readily accessible location.

Any inductive load when switched off, can produce electromagnetic interference (EMI). This interference can, and often does, trip GFCI devices. Most vapor compression refrigerators have a few inductive loads, any of which could cause the trip.

There are devices called snubbers that can be used to reduce, or eliminate the effects of EMI. Installing one between the fridge and the GFCI device, could prevent nuisance trips. The best solution though, is to connect the fridge to a non-GFCI protected circuit.

While most (all) manufacturers are aware that refrigerators can cause nuisance tripping of GFCI devices, most (none) seem willing to provide a solution. It would be complete speculation for me to try and tell you why they don't care, so of course I'll go through a few possibilities.

We got a new fridge for the house, and the old one was promoted to a garage fridge. In the house it had been working fine for a dozen years or longer, but it would trip any (code mandated) GFCI outlets in the garage. The trip occurred the instant anything but the lights were turned on. These were multiple circuits that work for other appliances, etc... To be sure it wasn't the GFCI, I connected the brand new fridge to the same circuits without issue.

I started checking the various components on the old fridge, plug ground continuity to fridge body, compressor checked out (no shorts), capacitor checked out (resistance + voltage testing), etc... As I was starting to search for replacement fridges, I came across something indicating icemaker or defrost heater can cause ground faults. I unplugged both devices from inside the freezer compartment, fired it up and it worked! Powering off and adding back in the defrost heater caused it to trip immediately again.

For now, I am leaving the auto-defrost disabled, and will explore troubleshooting options from here. At the end of the day, even having to manually defrost the evaporator, I am happy to not have to shell out for a replacement fridge. The short will likely be in the heating element itself or some related wiring...

Is the GFCI breaker in the outlet the fridge plugs into or is it a GFCI breaker in the breaker box? If its an outlet and you really want GFCI, you could try replacing the breaker in the box with a GFCI one and removing the on in the outlet. Or, like others have suggested, if this is a dedicated circuit to just the fridge and its in in the kitchen, just remove the GFCI breaker altogether.

I had this issue with the fridge in my garage--when we first turned it on, it would trip the GFCI every 10 hours or so. I replaced the defrost timer, and the problem continued. I Googled and found lots of people having the same problem, but no viable solutions. Then I thought about how "a full cooler is a cold cooler", and that the fridge would be working extra hard to cool an empty space. I had a 24 pack of Gatorades from Costco, threw that in the fridge, and voila. It's been 3 weeks now and the GFCI hasn't tripped since. I'm sure this won't be the solution for everyone, but it is certainly an easy thing to try.

Regular Circuit Breakers trip when maximum current for the circuit is exceeded. This protects against the circuit overheating and causing a fire, but doesn't protect against shocks to people in all conditions.

A GFCI outlet trips when the outgoing and returning current differs. The only way for the outgoing and returning current to be less is if the current is being drawn off the circuit to ground, which a human receiving a shock is exactly that. Thus Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI).

But, some high power complicated equipment, like refrigerators, can absorb enough current for a short period to create a difference in the outgoing and returning current at the GFCI and thus trip it. Someone mentioned it already, refrigerators are inductive loads, meaning current is being absorbed and generated out of phase with the AC current.

I had the same issue with my fridge in the garage. In the summer when it got hot, the GFCI would trip. Now in the winter it's cold and it does the same thing. Plug it into a non-GFCI and it works fine. I guess the answer is plug it into a non-GFCI outlet.

I've run into this. Older manual defrost freezers and fridges never tripped my GFCI outlets, but the newer one with self defrosting setup always did. I created a dedicated outlet that's non GFCI. More recently, the garage door opener also began to trip it, especially in cold weather. Wired it up also Non-GFCI but hard wired so not violating the code. Not sure if my freezer outlet is but I raised it out of reach to discourage useage.

You may have found your answer by now but wanted to make a note that I had this same problem with my brand new frig, would trip the GFCI, which by the way is not suppose to be hooked up to the plug for the refrigerator I found out. It was causing it to go off every 7 or 8 hours, contacted the appliance company and they told me it will trip the GFCI plug when the frig goes into the defrost cycle. When I had my electrician come out and correct the plug he confirmed this to be true and stated that plug should not have been tied into the GFCI circuit. So basically there is nothing wrong with your frig, just cannot be plugged into a GFCI outlet.

I encountered this issue twice, when I was putting used refrigerator in my garage, with a GFI outlet.In the 1st instance, it was a really old refrigerator that really did have a ground leakage issue that precluded it from being used with a GFI outlet.In the 2nd case, I wanted to try the newer (14 years old) refrigerator out, before I took the existing refrigerator out of service.I originally used an extension cord, (medium duty) between the refrigerator and the GFI outlet.Every time I tried to power up the new refrigerator, it would trip the GFI protection.However, the same refrigerator, plugged directly into the GFI outlet, did not trip the GFI protection.Evidently the added resistance/inductance of the extension cord, added enough of a power variation, to trip the GFI protection.

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