Land Line

Etters4 · 09-16-2008, 08:22 AM

I bought my camper from a dealer and every thing checked fine by them. I tried to plug my trailer in to a 20 amp recepticle in my home to just run the lights and it keeps kicking the breaker in the house so I turned off all the breakers in the tt, plugged back in to house and started to turn breakers back on. When the main breaker was turned on it was fine when any of the other breakers are turned on the breaker trips. Would this be a problem with the tt or should I install a 30 amp recepticle. I called the dealer and the mech. said it worked fine plugged into a 30 amp at thier shop.

Steve Collins · 09-16-2008, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etters4

I bought my camper from a dealer and every thing checked fine by them. I tried to plug my trailer in to a 20 amp recepticle in my home to just run the lights and it keeps kicking the breaker in the house so I turned off all the breakers in the tt, plugged back in to house and started to turn breakers back on. When the main breaker was turned on it was fine when any of the other breakers are turned on the breaker trips. Would this be a problem with the tt or should I install a 30 amp recepticle. I called the dealer and the mech. said it worked fine plugged into a 30 amp at thier shop.

Before you do anything else, double check to make sure the electric heater element in the hot water heater is OFF. Some models have a switch next to the hot water heater switch, usually in the kitchen. Mine (a '99) has a rocker switch right on top of the electric box on the back of the hot water heater.

And make sure the dedicated 110vac breaker for the hot water heater is OFF.

FWIW, I can run everything in our TT off a 20 amp receptacle including the AC if I don't run too many things at once. The AC and the microwave would trip the house breaker.

Also, are you tripping the circuit breaker or a GFCI?

Let us know and we can talk further.

Etters4 · 09-16-2008, 10:12 AM

The hot water heater breaker is off. It is a GFCI breaker that is tripping. Could this be the problem I know that they can be sensitive somtimes? I did have a motor home pluged in the same way before and it worked.

**PTHutch** · 09-16-2008, 10:26 AM

Have you tried plugging the trailer into a different (non-GFCI) house circuit?

Steve Collins · 09-16-2008, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etters4

The hot water heater breaker is off. It is a GFCI breaker that is tripping. Could this be the problem I know that they can be sensitive somtimes? I did have a motor home pluged in the same way before and it worked.

OK, this is a good start. For comparison's sake, I have my '99 Solaris plugged into a 20 amp GFCI circuit here. The breaker in the panel is a regular 20 amp breaker, and the outlet is a 20 GFCI duplex. When I installed the curcuit, I tested everything with the two testers that you see on the left - the red one (for GFCI outlets) and the yellow one (for regular non-GFCI outlets):

The house circuit was fine. And the GFCI properly trips if there is a ground fault. I then plugged in the trailer, and tested every outlet in it and they all tested ok, too.

If you have access to similar testers, I would suggest that you do the same procedure. The red and yellow testers will tell you if there is any kind of problem in the wiring. If there is, then you have a starting point for finding and fixing the problem.

FWIW, many of us carry both of these testers with our rigs and use them to test campground power before hooking up the trailer. I also carry the multimeter (on the right in the above picture) and use that to check voltage at the outlet, too.

Etters4 · 09-16-2008, 01:14 PM

Thank you, I found the problem. I tried to plug it into a recp. that is not a GCFI and it worked fine. I never gave that a thought. I tried a GFCI recp. and a GCFI breaker but didn't give a thought to look for one with out it. I have a newer home and it's hard to find one in the basement and garage without.