Repeated GFCI trip?

[outlook8]

GFCI's don't like motor startup loads.

The one and only receptacle in your garage allowed to not be a GFI is for the freezer. A GFI is designed for personnell protection, not equipment protection

Houses are wired as cheaply as possible to meet code. The old saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" applies here.


I strongly disapprove of wiring a GFI in series, it is lazy, cheap, and always leads to troubles. This would be putting one in the garage to protect everything down line.

I wire them in as "location only" and put one in each appropriate opening. This prevents troubles in the future, and reduces the load on the device circuitry.

Have an electrician buy several new ones, and put them in the kitchen, bathrooms, and outside locations. Put the freezer on a standard 'simplex' receptacle so nobody can plug anything else in on that opening.


No poll here, I am a master electrician.

Ding ding ding, winner winner chicken dinner!

[Beargrasstx]

I had same issue, bought regular receptacle just for freezer after losing a lot of deer meat. The way I see it, the wiring is better than it was in the 6o's and until recently there were no GFCi. If there is a problem it will trip the breaker. So far 3 thunderstorms and my freezer keeps running.

[zippedhim]

GFCI's don't like motor startup loads.

The one and only receptacle in your garage allowed to not be a GFI is for the freezer. A GFI is designed for personnell protection, not equipment protection

Houses are wired as cheaply as possible to meet code. The old saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" applies here.


I strongly disapprove of wiring a GFI in series, it is lazy, cheap, and always leads to troubles. This would be putting one in the garage to protect everything down line.

I wire them in as "location only" and put one in each appropriate opening. This prevents troubles in the future, and reduces the load on the device circuitry.

Have an electrician buy several new ones, and put them in the kitchen, bathrooms, and outside locations. Put the freezer on a standard 'simplex' receptacle so nobody can plug anything else in on that opening.


No poll here, I am a master electrician.

I agree with you one hundred percent, but if you wanted to fix it cheap you could leave the GFCI in the garage and change the box to a two gang box to add the dedicated receptacle on the line side for the freezer.

[Rockjock]

Put a regular receptacle for the freezer and move the GFI 'downstream' into the bathroom wit wherever you NEED one...

I'm an electricical contractor if that matters for anything...

I guess it matters. I am not so remember you are giving advice to people who are not.
So let me try to understand this. Let’s say I have six outlets in my garage. Three on one wall three on the other. They are off two separate breakers in the panel. The first outlet in each circuit is a GFCI. If this trips I loose power to the other two in that circuit. So they would be “downstream” and the GFCI “upstream”? So if I move the GFCI to the second outlet and move the regular outlet to position one that one would no longer be protected by the GFCI? Only the GFCI outlet and the third position are now protected or the outlets “downstream of a GFCI?

Now if I had another circuit that included the bathroom and garage. The GFCI is in the bathroom with regular plugs in the garage. If the GFCI trips in the bathroom I loose power to the outlets in the garage. How do I follow your advice and keep the bathroom outlets protected and replace a GFCI to get the outlets in the garage off the GFCI circuit?

[Rockjock]

OK -

I am suggesting changing out devices, it does not require adding any wire, or changing circuitry. Simply how the devices are terminated. As a homeowner, this is a relatively inexpensive way to upgrade your home's electrical safety and reliability.

Seldom is residential work done the best way. Cost controls everything in residential work. There is very little profit in it, and it is paid by piecework, not by the hour, so you get folks being pretty creative to save a buck, and still slide it past the inspector. It's a game to them to see just how much they can get away with and not receive a red tag.



You will not see it in commecial work. Specs won't allow it, I haven't seen it allowed in a spec in the last 15 years.

I understand exactly what you are saying. I didn’t know this was possible and would have thought it required rewiring the circuit. This sounds like the best advice given in any GFCI thread I have looked at. I wish you could explain the wiring part of it.. Sounds safer than some of the ideas I have seen or even given.

[csmetreyeon]

I guess it matters. I am not so remember you are giving advice to people who are not.
So let me try to understand this. Let’s say I have six outlets in my garage. Three on one wall three on the other. They are off two separate breakers in the panel. The first outlet in each circuit is a GFCI. If this trips I loose power to the other two in that circuit. So they would be “downstream” and the GFCI “upstream”? So if I move the GFCI to the second outlet and move the regular outlet to position one that one would no longer be protected by the GFCI? Only the GFCI outlet and the third position are now protected or the outlets “downstream of a GFCI?

Now if I had another circuit that included the bathroom and garage. The GFCI is in the bathroom with regular plugs in the garage. If the GFCI trips in the bathroom I loose power to the outlets in the garage. How do I follow your advice and keep the bathroom outlets protected and replace a GFCI to get the outlets in the garage off the GFCI circuit?

Sounds like your bathroom is upstream of your garage to me!

[Rockjock]

Sounds like your bathroom is upstream of your garage to me!

That’s how I understand it. So if the OP's GFCI is also upstream of his garage then how is saying "replace the GFCI with a regular plug" good advice? Or someone advises to rig the GFCI not to work, is that good advice? I don't know. I don't even know what a side load is. I would just like to see a good safe answer to these GFCI threads. I know I don't want my freezer on a circuit protected by GFCI and I think it is good advice to recommend people use a non GFCI circuit for freezers, but there has to be a good safe way to do this. I guess the fact that houses are wired in different ways complicates the issue but Gummi Bear has offered good advice. Maybe calling an electrician is always the safest bet?

[Bonesplitter]

Simple, put the gfci in the bathroom but don't feed the rest of the receptacles off the load side of the gfci, pigtail it in instead, now go to the next downstream plug for the freezer and install a regular outlet for the freezer, and the next downstream receptacle install a gfci and feed the rest of the circuit off the load side of that one. That gives you ground fault protection in the bathroom, a non protected receptacle for the freezer and everything else is ground fault protected.

[Rockjock]

Simple, put the gfci in the bathroom but don't feed the rest of the receptacles off the load side of the gfci, pigtail it in instead, now go to the next downstream plug for the freezer and install a regular outlet for the freezer, and the next downstream receptacle install a gfci and feed the rest of the circuit off the load side of that one. That gives you ground fault protection in the bathroom, a non protected receptacle for the freezer and everything else is ground fault protected.

Thank you. This I understand.

[csmetreyeon]

Simple, put the gfci in the bathroom but don't feed the rest of the receptacles off the load side of the gfci, pigtail it in instead, now go to the next downstream plug for the freezer and install a regular outlet for the freezer, and the next downstream receptacle install a gfci and feed the rest of the circuit off the load side of that one. That gives you ground fault protection in the bathroom, a non protected receptacle for the freezer and everything else is ground fault protected.

Yes this can work but it is recommended if polsible to put the freezer on its own circuit which I know on older houses isn't always an option the OP just need to watch what he plugs in "not too many things at once" on the particular circuit.