Why would an old fridge trip a circuit breaker?
I have a homebrew chest freezer in the garage, and a very understanding wife.

I am going to guess the problem is that the fridge has a 'freon' leak.

This leads to lack of oil in the freon line to lubricate the compressor. Which causes the compressor to overheat, and then a high temp thermostat opens.

The unit cools down, the thermostat resets, and it starts back up again.

The magic temp for overheating the compressor happens to be 8C inside of the fridge.

The reason for the breaker tripping immediately the first few times was from the compressor trying to start. Even though you gave it a couple of days, because of the leak, there is just not enough oil, in the right places, to start right up.


I am guessing the fix is easy for an appliance guy, a bit of dye to find the leak, solder over it, and recharge.


Best of luck to you and your lager.