Is It A Good Idea To Plug A Second Refrigerator Or Freezer Into An Outlet In The Garage?

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Can I Place A Second Refrigerator Or Freezer In The Garage?

Placing a freezer or refrigerator in the garage and plugging it into one of the wall outlets is a bad idea. All the electrical receptacles, in wet areas of a home, are Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) protected . That means, they are on a separate circuit that is “hyper Sensitive” to electrical shorts, power surges and high voltage use. That’s why powerful blow dryers can trip the GFI in your bathroom and require a reset. Their purpose is to keep you safe but they can be an inconvenience too.

Remember those old movies where a radio falls into a bath tub and fries the lady taking a bath? Or, the one where the woman in bare feet gets electrocuted while retrieving a piece of bread stuck in the toaster? That’s just an example of what Ground Fault Interrupters are intended to prevent. Sure, every outlet in a home is protected by a circuit breaker but you could receive a fatal shock before the breaker in the garage trips. The super sensitive GFI trips almost immediately when it senses trouble, potentially saving a life. 

The exterior home, garage interior, bathrooms, laundry and kitchen receptacles are all protected by GFI. Sometimes the sensor can be tripped and you won’t realize it until the next time you plug something into the receptacle and it doesn’t work. You may even know what a GFI breaker looks like but not be aware that other normal looking outlets in that same area are GFI protected too. GFI outlets don’t have to have a reset button on the face plate to be GFI protected. They are all suppose to be labeled with a GFI sticker but sometimes they fall of or the electrician forgets one. 

When a refrigerator or freezer is plugged into a receptacle inside the garage it’s now plugged into a GFI circuit. Sometimes, individual areas are tied together. The garage interior and the house exterior GFI receptacles may all be on the same circuit even though they are in completely different areas of the home. The bathroom and the kitchen can be on the same circuit too. That means someone can plug a powerful drill into a garage outlet and trip not only all the outlets in the garage but also the receptacles on the outside of the home or the other way around.

You could plug your new freezer into an outlet in the garage with $1,000 worth of fresh meat and the lawn guy could trip the GFI breaker in the yard and spoil all the food in your freezer. He can plug his electric hedge clipper or leaf blower in and created a major catastrophe somewhere else in your home. Of course, this always happens when you are away on vacation and return home to find a nasty smell in your garage area.

That’s why it’s a bad idea to plug anything into a GFI outlet that could be damaged if the circuit breaker trips. All of this sounds like a major inconvenience but it’s a safety issue designed to prevent accidents.

Have an awesome day!

Mike

Below, normal GFI breaker receptacle with reset button.

Below, GFI protected receptacle without breaker, reset button.

Below, GFI protected receptacle from my kitchen without the GFI sticker label.