My wife and put our old refrigerator out in the garage years ago (6 or 7) on an outlet that, coincidentally, is on the circuit that is connected to a GFCI in a bathroom (the garage outlet is on the other side of a wall from a bathroom). Everything has been working fine, no problems. The ice maker has been off that entire time.
She recently (about 6 weeks ago) cleaned it out, including vacuuming out the dust from the coils underneath. It has not been humid here in southern PA, and we had cleaned the fridge in the same manner a couple of years ago (2 or 3).
Now, after that cleaning the refrigerator is tripping the GFCI of the circuit it's on although it can take several hours. It can take 10-18 hours for it to happen I can find no pattern.
Steps I've taken:
- Disconnected the chest freezer that has been sharing that same circuit all these years so ONLY the fridge is on that circuit.
- Tested the plug for low resistance between the blades of the plug and open between blades and neutral.
- Inspected the cord for weird kinks or bends, looks pretty normal.
- Bought a snubber for a few bucks, but no luck.
- Checked the ice maker. I'm confident that the ice maker is still off because I can find no way to change it either way and it's definitely been off all these years.
- Turned the temperature to it's default setting (I noticed it was somewhat towards the 'colder' setting but my wife doesn't recall touching it). Also, no difference.
- This is the only GFCI circuit in the house, but there is no other outlet in the garage that wouldn't involve a long extension cord to get to the refrigerator.
Nothing has changed the behavior. When that refrigerator is unplugged there is no tripping after days, so it's none of the other items on that circuit. There were no nuisance trips until after the cleaning (I'm not a big believer in coincidences, but sometime they do happen?)
Any suggestions on things I can investigate?
Refrigerator manual: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/494568/Kitchenaid-Kscs25qfal00.html