Electrical – remove the GFCI protection from a final outlet in a series of three GFCI protected outlets

electricalgfci

My refrigerator is plugged into an outlet that is on the end of a series of three GFCI protected outlets that uses the first outlet to protect all three. The refrigerator manual says it should not be plugged into a GFCI outlet. Can I remove the GFCI protection from that last outlet?

Best Answer

Yes, it can be done.

The way it currently is: On the GFCI, power comes into the line terminals. There are two load terminals which let you use the GFCI's protection on downstream outlets. That is exactly how your downstream outlets are connected.

What to do: defeat this protection by moving the downstream outlets' wires to the line terminals. Except you can't put 2 wires on one terminal screw, and don't use backstabs, so pigtail this connection.

Ok, now the middle and refrigerator outlets are not protected. The law requires the middle outlet be protected. You'll need to buy another GFCI outlet and hook it up in same fashion so the refrigerator outlet is still not protected.

Lastly I would look at the refrigerator's outlet. Where is it? If it's a duplex outlet (the usual 2 outlets) in an accessible location, that's a problem, because it will be tempting for someone to use the other outlet. They could get a real shock when they discover it's not GFCI protected.

It might be possible to get a fancydancy split GFCI that only protects one outlet. But rather than fool around with that, I'd just get a single outlet for that location, so there's simply not room for anything but the fridge.

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