Some 110 v. electric outlets not working

[davidz71]

Before I took my '86 25' Sovereign to the hunting camp for turkey season I had it plugged into an extra heavy Yellow Jacket extension cord and was running the convertor and an oil radiator set to 55 degrees during the really cold days. I came out to the trailer first part of March after finding the GFCI breaker tripped in the garage. It happened within a few hours before because the freezer and refrigerator in the garage still had items frozen. I unplugged the heater and when I reset the breaker it tripped again. I checked all connections and cleaned them up. I actually found the extension cord plugged into the wall socket had an oily film on the connections. I cleaned all connections with fine Emory paper and reset the GFCI breaker in the breaker box and it ran fine. A week later I take the trailer to the hunting camp and find it trips the 20 amp GFCI breaker there. After eliminating the refrigerator and convertor as problems (both plugged directly into the dedicated 20 amp circuit and not tripping the building GFIC) I moved on to the main power cord as well as an extension cord plugged into the barn wall. Main 30 amp breaker does fine as I turn it on, 20 amp dual pole breaker to air conditioner does fine, bottom GFCI breaker does fine but when I go back to the right side 20 amp dual pole breaker on the right to 110 v. outlets it trips the GFIC breaker in the barn. I replaced that GFCI outlet in the barn with the same results. Further testing reveals convertor outlet in front has power, outlets either side of front window not working, outlets over kitchen and in bathroom not working, external outlets have no power yet the two outlets on both walls in the back bedroom are working. Does this sound like an open in one of the nonworking outlets? This is a mid bath rear corner bed design and the bathroom plug was where the heater was plugged in. I pulled that outlet and I don't see any burned wires or problems.

[davidz71]

Running the Yamaha 3000 generator through the 30 amp power outlet and a bonding to neutral plugged into one of the 110 outlets on the generator. All outlets in the trailer are functional so I am perplexed as to why the 110 v. GFCI in the barn trips and not the GFCI on the generator.

[rtkthevet]

Did you find the problem? Sound similar to an issue I am having.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Ok, so what does a GFCI breaker do?

It looks at the current down the neutral and the current down the hot lead. It does some math to detect if anything is headed somewhere it should not be ( = the ground wire ).

If you are hooked to your generator, you likely did not drive a spike deep into the earth to "ground" the system. Hopefully the plug in the garage *is* hooked to something like this. Having a "real ground" on the garage plug may well be the difference.

It' good be you have something loose somewhere and it's part of the "missing" outlets and the leakage.

Bob

[Wazbro]

Could also be a water leak getting somewhere electrical causing a small short to ground, it only takes a very small amount of leakage to ground to trip GFCI outlets.

[Fungus]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi


It' good be you have something loose somewhere and it's part of the "missing" outlets and the leakage.

Bob

^1.

Takes only ~5 milliamps difference between hot and neutral to trip a properly functioning GFCI.