I recently moved my old refrigerator into my garage next to my freezer. As soon as I plug in my refrigerator the GFCI pops. I have a 15 amp GFCI and a 15 amp breaker. The refrigerator and freezer are the only two items plugged into the five outlet circuit. They are plugged into separate outlets. The other three outlets are unused (including the GFCI).
I upgraded to a 20 amp GFCI and a 20 amp breaker. My refrigerator and freezer both run now without popping the GFCI. After some friendly advice as to check the gauge of wire I was using, I checked and sure enough it is 14 gauge wire. After reading in this forum it looks like 14 gauge wire is not to code with a 20 amp breaker and GFCI. Is this just a code issue or is this potentially a bigger problem of overheating and possibly causing a fire? Thank you so much for any help and or advice!
UPDATE:
The refrigerator is currently unplugged until I can replace the 20a breaker back to the original 15a breaker.
I forgot to mention that the first thing I did was to replace the original 15a GFCI with a new 15a GFCI. It popped too. That is when I made the (wrong) decision to "upgrade" everything to 20a.
If I am having a grounding or other issue with my fridge, why did it pop the new 15a GFCI but not the new 20a GFCI?
Could I just remove the GFCI altogether and replace with a standard receptacle?
Best Answer
On a receptacle branch circuit wired with 14 AWG wire, nobody cares if you use a GFCI+receptacle combo device that is rated 15A or 20A. 15A devices are thru-rated for 20A.
However, they care very much if you use a 20A breaker. That is illegal and unsafe, and you must promptly change it to 15A. I don't know what you were thinking. All breaker sizes cost the same, so the original installer already used the largest breaker that is safe. You must never "just upgrade a breaker".
However, you are not allowed to have a 20A socket (NEMA 5-20) which has the T-shaped neutral, on a 15A circuit. If that is what your new GFCI is, it has to go.
As for running a refrigerator and freezer in a GFCI-protected zone, it's legal, but stupid. These aren't the appliances GFCIs are intended for. You're not likely to drop one in a sink, nor are you likely to touch the hot parts no matter how much the unit fails. Grounding is more than adequate to protect humans. In fact NEC makes specific exceptions for refrigerators and freezers in areas that normally require GFCI protection**.
After all, this is a conflict between two safety systems. The refrigerator's job is to protect food, but it stands in conflict with GFCI's job to protect humans from shocks.
So your best path here is to remove the refrigerator and freezer from GFCI protection, by assigning them dedicated sockets and labeling those sockets "Refrigerator/freezer only". There are several ways to do that.
Regardless, the socket must be dedicated. Normally, you must use a single receptacle. Like this.
This also looks good to the inspector.
Since you have both fridge and freezer, you need 2 sockets obviously. If they are right next to each other, you can use a common "duplex" receptacle, but it will be all the more important that you mark it as dedicated.