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I rent an apartment over a restaurant. Today the owner asked me to remove the GFCI outlet that a freezer is plugged into. Her brother told her the freezer quit because the outlet was getting damp due to its location, beside the commercial disheasher. I politely tried to explain this was not legal due to the code, there must be more to the problem than her brother knows. Since I am not family and only have 10 plus years experience in all phases of construction I am assumed wrong. Could you provide the chapter and verse on this code?
This is self explanitory. If the outlet is getting wet, it either needs to trip or go up in smoke. Not very surprizing because most restaurant personel only know that the unit has failed. Don 't care why either. Just fix it. Can't sight chapter and verse but I do know that if the outlet is located within a certain number of feet of a water source, code calls for the GFI. All new homes built in the last 8 to 10 years must have a GFI in the bathrooms and kitchen areas. You may want to point that out.
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Make sure you have enough amps in the outlet its plugged into. The kitchen outlet might of had more amps than the garage outlet. Also, try unplugging it for a few seconds then plug it back it which might reset it.
If it is a chest freezer, almost certainly it is the compressor. Only way to check is to pull the power plug out then remove the compressor wires from the terminals then make sure it doesent touch the frame of the freezer, then plug the power back in and see if the power trips again. If not, there is the problem.
My first instinct is to ask you, are you plugging this freezer into a GFI outlet, one which has a breaker switch as part of the outlet? If so, that is the culprit and not the freezer, as refrigerators and freezers will often trip this ground fault indicator because water can on occasion reach ground, which causes the breaker to trip on the outlet.
Test this by plugging the freezer into a non GFI outlet for longer than a few days. Nothing is broken and you dont need refrigerator repair service.
All fridge and freezers should be plugged into an NON-GFCI protected outlet, since the inital start of the compressor can cause the GFCI to detect a millivolt surge, when the compressor starts, causing the GFCI to trip.
If this is in a kitchen, you should change out the outlet to a non-GFCI outlet BUT only to a single outlet that only has the freezer plugged into.
If it's in a basement, garage, or some other place with a GFCI outlet, you can change out that one outlet to a standard single outlet device of which ONLY the freezer will be plugged into and remain code compliant. You will need to make sure that any other outlets served by that current GFCI outlet stay protected, by installing the GFCI you swap out, and put it in place of the NEXT outlet in the circuit.
By doing that, you will have the first outlet that was the GFCI, now a single outlet NON-GFCI serving the freezer, but the next outlet in the branch circuit gets a GFCI outlet, thus protecting the rest of the circuit, in compliance with the NEC (National Electric Code)
If you need further help with this, please comment back and I'll check back later and provide you more detailed info. Of course, be sure to turn off the breaker to this circuit before making any changes to the outlets, etc.
The defrost timer is faulty or you have a defrost circuit short, unplug remove back panel inside the freezer and check for a short in the heater and defrost thermostat.
actionsnax please remove the freezer from the GFCI. What is happening on this old unit is that if the compressor shuts off then tries to come back on before the pressure in the system equalizes, the compressor can pull 12 amps. This is normally higher than the trip point of the GFCI. I had this happen years ago with a brand new Amana SXS refrig, in that case no one knew the unit was on a GFCI. The manufactures require that this units not be on a GFCI.
Hope this helps
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