Inclement weather this weekend - Electrical Tips
 

Hello Friends of Talk of The Villages! Casandra with Pike's Electric here. Happy Friday! :a040:
This weekend we are expecting lots of rain and wind gusts. We have received lots of calls at Pike's Electric regarding GFI tripping issues mainly from Christmas decorations and lights from possibly overloading the circuit or the dampness/moisture on the circuit. We highly suggest through the weekend that you prepare your exterior decor and lights for this weather, as any of these items can carry moisture and cause your interior garage GFI to trip which may cause your garage doors, interior garage equipment (including garage fridge or freezers) to lose power if they are tied into the same circuit. Unplugging these items before the heavy rain can be helpful in the chance of a GFI trip occurring and causing power to be lost to those items until the circuit dries out. If your home was built in 2018 or newer, you may have GFI breakers versus GFI outlets with reset buttons throughout the home.

On another thread, you may have noticed I chimed in on Whole Home Surge Protection. This is a big recommendation of ours throughout the seasons to protect your home from surges and damages to your major appliances, equipment, and sensitive electronics. We offer a 5% discount on ALL of our services for Talk of The Villages members, so be sure you mention it if you call in to us.
We are happy to be your local trusted electrician. Please do not hesitate to call us for any helpful tips, information, for all of your home's electrical needs.

Good advise!

Adding it's not a good idea to put fridge/freezer on A GFI. Suggest to consider having someone like Pike install a dedicated outlet for those appliances if in your garage.

I haven't heard this before. Why is this not a good idea?

If you use an outlet in the garage these typically also serve OUTSIDE outlets which have been known to cause the GFCI to trip and you will lose power to the refrigerator/freezer. If you have a power loss alarm or something similar to indicate trouble you may be able to get by.

If GFI trips you'll loose food in freezer. Neighbor had 10lbs of shrimp various steaks an roast. Went away for 5 days GFI tripped.
Garage smelled real good. Couldn't get smell out of freezer insulation.

A great reminder, thanks for mentioning this!

Basically, a fridge compressor starting up can in some cases trip a GFCI outlet/breaker.

I received 3 quotes for adding a dedicated outlet receptacle in the garage for our freezer and refridgerator.........all companies said ONLY GFI outlets could be installed. Were all 3 incorrect, maybe :ohdear::ohdear:

They are correct. According the NEC:

210.8(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt through 250-volt receptacles installed in the locations specified in 210.8(A)(1) through (A)⁠(11) and supplied by single-phase branch circuits rated 150 volts or less to ground shall have ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel.

(1) Bathrooms

(2) Garages and also accessory buildings that have a floor located at or below grade level not intended as habitable rooms and limited to storage areas, work areas, and areas of similar use

(3) Outdoors

No, they were not incorrect. By recent code changes, all outlets in the garage must be GFCI. Many refrigerators will trip GFCI outlets. One solution is to replace the GFCI outlet with a non-GFCI simplex outlet after you have the dedicated line run if it is to be used for a refrigerator exclusively. Our house does have a dedicated 20 amp line to a non-GFCI outlet in the garage because it was built before the code change. The dedicated 20 amp line to the kitchen for our refrigerator is connected to a 20 amp simplex non-GFCI outlet.

That's correct for the current code. The risk is more for plugging a fridge/freezer into outlets shared with exterior recepticals tripping for example when your XMAS lights get wet.

Hopefully they would install a dedicated GFI when adding an outlet for a fridge.

Understood.

Previously there was an exemption allowing a dedicated single receptical outlet. It would need to be at least 6ft away from a water source.

Some areas retained this exemption when removed from the code. Don't know local codes here.

...

210.8 & 547.5. “ GFCI protection shall not be required for a single receptacle supplying a dedicated load and marked “not GFCI protected”.

Cassandra is the best. I have used Pike for multiple improvements and have never been disappointed