Community Forums

faye · 12-23-2009, 01:10 AM

we have a 2004 national seabreeze that we purchased about 6 months ago, we took a recent trip and tried to use a 1500 watt electric heater and it kept tripping the breaker. for those of you who use electric heaters, do you rewire a receptable or are you able to plug the heater into your regular outlets?????

MonacoMama · 12-23-2009, 02:28 AM

It really does depend on what else you have on at the same time.
You can bet anything like the coffee maker, blow dryer or microwave oven on at the same time will trip the breaker.

OldChief7155 · 12-23-2009, 04:56 AM

ditto MonacoMaMa.

Hair dryers, coffee pots, a/c, microwaves, power tools and any high juice users will kick the breaker when you add a 1500 watt heater to the mix. The breaker is doing its job.

paz · 12-23-2009, 05:56 AM

Are you tripping the breaker in your RV or at the pedestal? If at the pedestal, I assume it's only a 30 amp hookup, and you can solve the problem as MM says and not run any other big loads at the same time.

If you're tripping a breaker inside the RV, then you will have to see what else is on the same circuit and make sure everything else is turned off. A 1500 watt heater will draw about 12.5 amps at 120 volts. If the voltage in the campground is lower, the amperage draw will be higher. Assuming your circuit in the RV is 15 amp (most are), it won't handle much more than the heater.

We have a 1500 watt heater I can't remember ever tripping a breaker inside the RV. We always use one of several plugs that don't have anything else on that same circuit. We have, however, tripped the breaker at the pedestal when we forgot about the heater and tried to run the microwave or dryer at the same time.

speed racer · 12-23-2009, 06:03 AM

What size breakeris it. 1500watts is almost 13amps and would be close to a 15amp breaker.

Gary RVRoamer · 12-23-2009, 07:16 AM

Odds are all the regular outlets in your RV are on one 15 amp circuit, so the 1500 watt heater needs just about all it can handle. Just about anything else plugged into an outlet will cause it to exceed the breaker capacity (usually 15 amps). So look around and see what else is on that same breaker and try to eliminate it. Or set the heater to a lower power level - most can be set for Low heat, which will be around 1000 watts (8.5 amps instead of 12.5).