Community Forums

mojocat27 · 12-15-2011, 07:45 PM

Me and hubby recently bought a 28 ft 1997 fleetwood prowler 5th wheel. Seems the GFI will not reset. We had a space heater plugged in cause the furnace wont light and it blew when he was trying to make coffee. All of the outlets are dead and now and GFI wont reset. New GFI has been put it...he is a electrcian and is just going crazy he cant figure this out. Owners manual is of no help. New GFI was of no help. He has toned out the wires to below the stove behind the breaker box. He has power to the breakers. Any ideas on how to get to this area or of problems with this area. Also the was water damage to the slide at one time..could that of got to something???

mrschwarz · 12-15-2011, 08:44 PM

I had the same problem with a previous motor home. The RV tech found a screw that went through the insulation of the wire. Is it possible that the high current to the heater caused the wire to get warm and an iffy screw pierced the insulation?

sdennislee · 12-15-2011, 08:46 PM

I'm sure hubby checked already but in RVs with more than one GFCI you need to verify that all are reset, they are interconnected. My first thought anyway. Kinda of intimidating offering electrical advice to an electrician.

I don't know the layout of your fifth wheel, is there more than one breaker panel?

2nd thought, check the breakers on the inverter.

Check outside outlets for moisture.

Do you have power to those outlets if you disconnect from shore power and run the generator?

Let us know what the problem ends up being and the fix.

You can also use the search feature close to the top of the page to the right and search GFI and GFCI. SHould be lots of info there. Good luck hope its a quick fix for you guys.

mojocat27 · 12-15-2011, 09:21 PM

One breaker panel and GFI outlet have been checked and re checked, so has all the inside and outside outlets...still gonna replace the outside outlet. No gen hooked to this..dunno about inverter as hasn't said anything about one. The manual says "typically" the is one GFI located in the bathroom. He is losing power somewhere from the back of the breaker box under neath the stove....i think I will go hide when he goes to fix that if he has to pull the stove.

sdennislee · 12-15-2011, 10:52 PM

Bummer, I was really hoping you would write back and tell us there was a GFI outlet in the kitchen that tripped when the bathroom one tripped and you reset the kitchen one and all was good. Sorry I wasn't of more help.

Hopefully someone w=else will chime in with the answer. Lot's of smart people here, just need the right one to read your post.

movin-on · 12-16-2011, 06:02 AM

A couple of more things to try...If you have any appliances plugged in unplug them all and then try to reset, if it resets plug them back in one at a time until it trips...If it still trips undo the hot and neutral at a dead outlet and try to reset...If it doesn't, continue on to the next outlet toward the GFI and do the same...Hopefully you will find the culprit...

mojocat27 · 12-17-2011, 11:29 AM

The only GFi is the one in the bathroom...some how the kitchen is tied into that one. I asked the ol man and the inverter is ok. Gonna change out the outside patio plug and the outlet for the inverter.

mojocat27 · 12-17-2011, 04:58 PM

Think we found the problem....the wiring out to the pole is reversed.....he found that out when putting in the outlet for the inverter and got shocked and he had power off. Went outside and pulled the rv plug from the pole and no more shock. He looked at the other poles and they are the same way....white and black wires reversed. He was just gonna buy a rv plug but is just gonna switch the wires in the breaker box. Will update tomorrow!!!!

DriVer · 12-17-2011, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojocat27

Will update tomorrow!!!!

My Progressive EMS protects me from those type of wiring faults so I don't have to wind up pulling my hair out trying to figure out anomalies if they pop-up. A crossed wire situation like that will definitely pop a GFI.

sdennislee · 12-17-2011, 07:38 PM

Glad to hear you have narrowed it down to the pole wires. SOunds like a simple fix for hubby and life will be good.

YC1 · 12-17-2011, 07:45 PM

Quote:

He was just gonna buy a rv plug but is just gonna switch the wires in the breaker box. Will update tomorrow!!!!

I trust you are translating all of this and you mean he is going to correct the issue at the post and not change anything in the rv to accomidate the wiring error at the pole?

This is a serious accident waiting to happen. Since he is an "electrician" I am sure he safe or he would not be here today.

Guess the gfci did its job!

mojocat27 · 12-18-2011, 04:31 PM

Well he fixed the issue at the breaker box by switching the wires and actually can get power to the GFI plug now but the gfi still sees something it don't like and won't reset so he has got the idea in his head just to put a regular outlet in which I am strongly AGAINST. I guess one of the wires isn't getting full voltage. Any ideas now?

mojocat27 · 12-18-2011, 04:32 PM

he is just gonna reverse the wires at the breaker box and not mess with the campground's 50 A service pole

SKP Kirk · 12-19-2011, 05:27 AM

First of all, no GFI outlet is polarity sensitive so reversed polarity will not cause one to trip. They do not protect from this issue and no licensed electrician would reverse the wires inside of the RV to correct for reversed wires at the power supply. To do this will mean that all places which are properly wired will then be reversed in your RV. That is very dangerous and with "Hubby" having just gotten bitten, even he should have figured that out! If polarity is reversed, the only proper place to correct it is at the location where the reversal has taken place!

There is only one thing which will cause a properly working GFCI outlet to trip. That is an imbalance between the power supplied by the hot lead and that which returns through the neutral. It is the only thing that they do, but they do this very well. They are also designed such that if they fail, it is nearly always to fail open, and not supply power at all. To understand how one works, I suggest this page from "How Stuff Works."

It is very common for a GFCI protected circuit to be wired such that one GFCI protects all outlets that are connected down stream from it. A GFCI comes with one connection point for the power supply and two connection points for the down stream circuit, one that is protected by the GFCI and one which is not protected, so you have the choice, but it would be very rare to find the unprotected connection in use and not all lower cost GFCI units have the unprotected connections.

Quote:

he is just gonna reverse the wires at the breaker box and not mess with the campground's 50 A service pole

Now this is where things get rather strange in this story. You see a 120/240V-50A outlet, such as are used by RV power cords for 50A service, have two legs that are hot and one which is neutral as well as one that is ground. The simple fact is that you can't reverse the polarity on one of these! If you reverse one hot with the ground, that will put a direct connection between the two hot legs of opposite polarity and the main circuit breaker will trip instantaneously! The only thing that would reverse and allow power to be used at all, is the neutral and the ground, which don't give you reversed polarity!