Gabbard wrote:
Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Gabbard" wrote in message
Last night my Maytag deep freeze popped the outlet in our garage. I
hit the reset on the outlet and it popped it again right away. We left
the freezer unplugged (got everything out of it) and this morning I
tried again...same result. At first I thought it must be the outlet so
I plugged in a radio and it did fine. I then ran an extension cord
into my house and tried the freezer off an outlet in my kitchen. Same
thing, popped the outlet. So now I'm pretty sure it's the freezer.
It's only around a year old, but what could be going on with it that's
making it draw so much current? I'd appreciate any help.

First question is, what is popping an outlet? Tripping a GFCI outlet or
a
circuit breaker?
Two entirely different things.
Tripping the GFCI outlet.
Does it run in a regular outlet? Refrigerators should not be on a GFCI
because of potential tripping problems. You may or may not have a freezer
problem though.

If it is a year old, it should be covered under warranty yet I would think.

I tried it for a couple of minutes in a regular outlet and it ran fine.
I just did it as a test and didn't leave it plugged in. I'm obviuosly
not an electrician. Should I leave it in a regular outlet and just see
what happens?


Feezers should be plugged into non-GFCI-protected outlets. But this is
to protect the contents of the freezer if the GFCI trips (which they do
sometimes for no reason) If your freezer trips the GFCI, it probably
has a problem with leakage current to ground, but it could be that the
GFCI is bad and overly sensitive to inductive loads -- the compressor
starting up.

BTW, sometimes regular outlets are downstream of a GFCI and protected by it.

I used to have a GFCI in my basement that would trip whenever I plugged
a shop vac into it. It didn't like the universal motor. I could plug a
large induction motor into it and it was fine. I replaced the GFCI with
a different brand and had no trouble after that (this was about 10 years
ago.)

Bob