Friends of ours situated their 15-year-old upright freezer in our shop temporarily. DW has some stuff stored in it. Yesterday they jointly defrosted the freezer, which meant water all over the concrete slab floor. When they attempted to plug it back in, it immediately tripped the GFI receptacle in the garage. There are two different circuits each with one GFI as their only receptacle, and both tripped. An extension cord was run from the house and a non-GFI outlet, and it runs on that. No fires or electrocutions yet.
So, this means some sort of voltage leak, if I understand GFIs correctly. Any likely suspects? I wonder if it has something to do with the water on the slab… or maybe it just died.
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My guess would be you have gotten water into an electrical device: Compressor wiring, defrost timer,temp control etc.
Let dry out and try again!
Freezers. refigerators, and sump pump should not be on GFCI's.
To many false trips. That is if they are plugged into a properly ground receptacle.
That ground will carry any fault currents. And many older refigerator/freezers had enough to trip a GFCI. If the fault currents are too high then the breaker will trip.
BTW, this week I am installing a GFCI for a sump pump.
House is being sold and the inspector called out that there was no receptacle for the sump pump. And rightfully so. It was being run off an extension cord. He also recommended that battery backup be installed. But I doubt that the sump is even needed in that location and if it is it does not run much.
He also recommended GFCI's in the kitchen.
So the buyer had the contract admented to Install GFCI receptacles in Kitchen and Install GFCI receptacle for sump pump. The inspector never never used those words.
But that is what the buyer and seller agreed to. Now I emailled the seller's agent suggesting that the GFCI is not needed adn best not be used. But trying to get that back through the buyers agent and the buyer to change it was too much for a small detail.
Water on the slab gives about 1 ohm impedance to ground from the freezer case.
Water in the compressor and timer boxes with any kind of 'salts' present can get surface leakage as low as a few 10's of kohms, say 15kohms in your case, typical value for a wet dirty surface.
I=E/R = 120/(1+15000) = 0.008 amps; GFCIs typically set to trip at 0.005, so the trip was to be expected.
Besides letting it dry, while it is unplugged it is a good time to clean the dirt from the coils and other areas underneath.
Yeah, let it dry, and don't put it on a GFCI. Especially in defrost mode condensation is apt to build up on the wiring and cause (not quite false) trips.
Do, of course, make sure that the unit is plugged into a properly grounded outlet. And never operate one off a standard extension -- always at least a #14 appliance extension if you must use an extension.
At 15 years old, it would be better to replace the freezer for a new very much more efficient one. Unless of course you get eletricity for free or 2 cents a KWh.