Refrigerator circuit for refrigerator residential dedicated? GFCI?

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Danny89

Member
Location
Indian Land
Hello guys my questions are as follows.

A standard residential kitchen

When planning for the refrigerator circuit.

Question 1)
Should this be a dedicated circuit?

Question 2)
Should this be a GFCI circuit breaker or receptacle?

Please support your answers with NEC code articles.

Thanks in advance.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
 
Ded
Hello guys my questions are as follows.

A standard residential kitchen

When planning for the refrigerator circuit.

Question 1)
Should this be a dedicated circuit?

Question 2)
Should this be a GFCI circuit breaker or receptacle?

Please support your answers with NEC code articles.

Thanks in advance.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
Dedicated 15 or 20 amp, or on the SABC.

Doesn't need a GFCI if more than 6 feet from a sink.

I usually put on SABC with DF breaker.
 

Another C10

Electrical Contractor 1987 - present
Location
Southern Cal
Occupation
Electrician NEC 2020
The nice thing about putting the frig on a separate circuit is the less chance of it getting kicked off from another appliance, although I don't recall any residential refrigerators drawing more than 10A, GFI could depend on the city guideline sometimes they can go over and beyond NEC standards. Like mentioned above GFI is usually within 6 ft of water on concrete or outside, although I suppose a tiled kitchen floor could constitute a concrete slab condition.
 

MattG0311

Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Apprentice Wireman
Anyone put surge protected receptacles in for fridges and other high dollar appliances? I just bought one for a TV flush mount box I’m putting in. It was like 38 bucks but I figured why not.
 

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
Not sure of anybody else's experience but had a customer that was regularly burning out control boards on his refrigerator from surges, atleast once or twice a year. Installed a high quality whole house surge protection and now more than 2 years the fridge hasn't burned out.
My experience with the cheap plugin power/surge strips has been that they are not very useful for actual surge protection. Would recommend if surge truly a concern to use a reputable mfg that has a warrenty to match.
 

augie47

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee
Occupation
State Electrical Inspector (Retired)
My daughter purchased a new frige and it had a tag on the cord cautioning to use a surge protector. I put a SquareD one on the circuit.
Been a while back and so far, no problem.
I would not want to put a motor load on one of the cheap plug-in type.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Not sure of anybody else's experience but had a customer that was regularly burning out control boards on his refrigerator from surges, atleast once or twice a year. Installed a high quality whole house surge protection and now more than 2 years the fridge hasn't burned out.
My experience with the cheap plugin power/surge strips has been that they are not very useful for actual surge protection. Would recommend if surge truly a concern to use a reputable mfg that has a warrenty to match.
Any warranty instructions for the whole house type usually requires you to have other protection at specific loads as well.

Idea I assume is the whole house protector knocks down majority of what comes in from utility, but any other surges that either get past that or originate within the premises get further knocked down by the device at the equipment. Then on top of that many electronic items also have some surge protection built in as well. Might just be simple MOV's across the incoming conductors (L-N, L-G, N-G).
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Hello guys my questions are as follows.

A standard residential kitchen

When planning for the refrigerator circuit.

Question 1)
Should this be a dedicated circuit?

Question 2)
Should this be a GFCI circuit breaker or receptacle?

Please support your answers with NEC code articles.

Thanks in advance.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
As already mentioned 210.8 and 210.52 contain the answers to your questions.

SABC's include refrigeration equipment. Is optional to run a dedicated circuit to a refrigerator but it is still considered one of the SABC's.

GFCI protection is required if any condition mentioned in 210.8 applies. Typical kitchens will generally just be because of proximity to a sink.

AFCI protection (which you did not mention) would also be required in a dwelling unit kitchen, unless you are on earlier code that didn't yet include kitchens in 210.12 (2011 and earlier I think).
 

tthh

Senior Member
Location
Denver
Occupation
Retired Engineer
Always to to avoid GFCI on refrigerator if possible, to avoid coming home and discovering it nuisance tripped and spoiled food or melted ice and water on the floor and messing up the flooring, etc.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
While I agree, because AFCI will always be required, I'm not sure there's much point in worrying about that philosophy.
Though I do agree with you, my experience is HO's seem to think I'm supposed to make it so that will never happen again.

And of course they bring up the fact they didn't have "those devices" until I installed them in their new or remodeled home and there never was any "problem" before.

Just more of a rant here - installers take the brunt of complaints over something they really have little control over if they intend to comply with codes.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
The thing about surge protectors is that the closer they are located to the service point is, the higher the voltage of surges they will let past without clamping.

So if your device is sensitive to lower voltage surges, it is entirely possible that installing a whole house SPD will do nothing for that device.
 

Another C10

Electrical Contractor 1987 - present
Location
Southern Cal
Occupation
Electrician NEC 2020
does concrete slab trigger GFCI requirement in certain local code amendments
don't have the actual code in front of me but its always been within 6ft of a sink or basin ..( water ) in a garage (slab) or outside normally at ground level.

The concept of concrete ( Garage ) is lets say someone is bare foot, the slab is a good return to earth for voltage, and the person touches an appliance or similar with a stray voltage present, the stray voltage could/would use the person to find its way back home through your bare feet, it doesn't take much to stop a heart beat.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
The thing about surge protectors is that the closer they are located to the service point is, the higher the voltage of surges they will let past without clamping.

So if your device is sensitive to lower voltage surges, it is entirely possible that installing a whole house SPD will do nothing for that device.
That is part of why you still need protective device near the load you desire to protect.

The device at the service is like the primary shock absorbers, the device at the load is like the air ride seat.
 
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