Residential Kitchen
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.
National Electrical Code 2014
Chapter 2 Wiring and Protection
Article 210 Branch Circuits
I. General Provisions
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.
(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and
20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in
210.8(A)(1) through (10) shall have ground-fault circuit interrupter protection for personnel.
(6) Kitchens— where the receptacles are installed to serve the countertop surfaces.
Garages, Unfinished Basement, and Other Locations
If the refrigerator is in a garage, boathouse, or unfinished basement. All the receptacles are required to be GFCI protected, so the fridge will have to be plugged into a GFCI protected receptacle.
Why does the fridge trip the GFCI?
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.
Is there anything that can be done?
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.
If that's all it takes, why isn't there already one built in?
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.
- Cost.
Plain and simple, it costs money to implement a solution.
- Warranties and Operating Conditions.
Most refrigerators are designed to operate in a kitchen. Running them in dusty, dirty garages and basements could lead to more warranty covered repairs.
Was the motor replaced with the same size (horsepower, amperage, voltage) motor? What is the amperage and voltage listed on the motor's data plate? In many cases the motor plate will either list the size of the required breaker, or if not, the manufacturers website will have that information available. If you "had the motor changed" it might be best to call the company that changed it and report that the new motor is tripping the breaker, where the old one did not, and have them check for issues, since they should have verified that the new motor would work the same, or made any changes needed to support any change in the motor. If you changed it yourself, that's on you.
You should not replace the breaker with a larger breaker unless the new motor requires a larger breaker.
You should not replace the breaker with a larger breaker without ALSO replacing the wire with larger wire, suited to the size of the larger breaker, which should be suited to the size of the new motor. 20 amp, 12 gauge copper, minimum - 30 amp, 10 gauge copper, minimum.
Rather than "sanding the wires" you should (with the breaker off, of course) cut off the damaged ends of the wire, pull it a little further in, and strip the ends to get new undamaged wire. If this is not possible, consider replacing the wire, especially if it's fairly short run.
110V (single-pole breaker?) is rather abnormal for most well pump installations. One potential fix would be to re-wire for 220V operation if possible
Best Answer
You answered your own question. This is a ground fault. Your TV circuit isn't in a wet or unfinished area, so it doesn't have or need ground fault protection, so it doesn't have a problem. Since the problem happens on two different GFCI-protected circuits and didn't happen when the refrigerator was brand new, there likely really is a problem. Multiple opening and closing as a trigger would indicate either some sort of interference that happens (e.g., perhaps there are fans/motors that stop when you open the door and start again when you close it and repeated action causes the ground fault) or maybe some part that has an insulation breakdown and repeated opening/closing of the doors allows condensation to drip down to just the wrong place.
Bottom line: GFCI with refrigerator is generally not a good combination, because if this happened while you were out and didn't find out until the next day, your food would all be spoiled. Or potentially worse, you had the problem and didn't know it and reset the breaker because of something else, you might not realize the refrigerator had been off for several hours.
The ideal solution is to fix or replace the refrigerator. Realistically, the problem is probably not a true safety hazard, but we can't be sure. In many cases, a refrigerator can be plugged into a non-GFCI circuit, but normally the exception is based on the circuit not powering any countertop kitchen receptacles, which typically requires running a separate circuit exclusively for the refrigerator. Extension cords are only a temporary solution.