Electrical Issue

[baldwin6601]

I have a 2010 22'Sport. I just brought it home from the Airstream dealership in Caldwell, ID where it had the refrigerator and roof top AC serviced. The dealer also installed a new refrigerator door under warranty. It has been sitting on it's outdoor pad in very cold weather for about 10 days. Today I noticed that none of the electric outlets are working. The ceiling lights, fan, water heater and roof top AC are getting power. When I cycle on the Dometic fridge, the red LED warning indicator blinks when the fridge is cycled to AC power, which means that the fridge is getting insufficient or no AC votage. When I cycle the fridge to battery or propane, the LED warning indicator goes off. The fridge is plugged into an outlet inside the outdoor grills. I have reset the trailer's circuit breakers. I am assuming that the Airstream technician had to pull the fridge out a bit to replace the door so I checked all the wiring behind the fridge in the cavities inside the outdoor grills. Everything looks as it should. I just today noticed that none of the interior outlets has a GFCI reset button so I can't try that. Any suggestions from my Forum friends before I tow it back to the dealership?

[nilesrob]

Originally Posted by baldwin6601

I have a 2010 22'Sport. I just brought it home from the Airstream dealership in Caldwell, ID where it had the refrigerator and roof top AC serviced. The dealer also installed a new refrigerator door under warranty. It has been sitting on it's outdoor pad in very cold weather for about 10 days. Today I noticed that none of the electric outlets are working. The ceiling lights, fan, water heater and roof top AC are getting power. When I cycle on the Dometic fridge, the red LED warning indicator blinks when the fridge is cycled to AC power, which means that the fridge is getting insufficient or no AC votage. When I cycle the fridge to battery or propane, the LED warning indicator goes off. The fridge is plugged into an outlet inside the outdoor grills. I have reset the trailer's circuit breakers. I am assuming that the Airstream technician had to pull the fridge out a bit to replace the door so I checked all the wiring behind the fridge in the cavities inside the outdoor grills. Everything looks as it should. I just today noticed that none of the interior outlets has a GFCI reset button so I can't try that. Any suggestions from my Forum friends before I tow it back to the dealership?

Saw your post because I have an issue with my GFCI breaker. I am not an electrician, but I believe the outlets do not have a reset button on them because there is a reset on the breaker in your distribution panel, although it sounds like you have already been there...

[khollister]

The GFCI breaker is likely bad - they are somewhat less reliable than regular breakers. If you have a DMM (and are comfortable working around live circuits), remove the front panel over the breakers and measure the AC voltage between the neutral buss bar (the one with white wires) and the hot terminal at the bottom of the GFCI breaker.

[HowieE]

Your GFI may be in the breaker panel not a wall box. Check there and try to rest each breaker by moving the toggle to the OFF position and then to the ON position.

Remember you have 2 electrical 120 volt AC and 12 volt DC. The 12 voltis what is feeding the lights and the control board in the frig. When the frig is on AC it is plugged into a receptacle and that receptacle was not powered when you tried to run the frig on AC

[idroba]

Plug a light or something which takes 120 volt power into the outlet which supplies the refrigerator (sometimes they are hard to find/see) to see for sure that there is no 120 volt power to that outlet. If not, I would look again for a GFCI somewhere that has opened. In my 2014 FC 20, there is one in the bathroom which has white buttons on a white outlet, and it is actually very hard to see that it is a GFCI.

You also might call Zona Allen, the service manager at the dealer. She is very sharp and might give you some additional insight, prior to having to take it to them.

[baldwin6601]

I went back to the panel and saw one breaker with a white test button which looks like the reset GFCI button so I FIRMLY turned that breaker off, FIRMLY pushed the white button and voila, problem solved. Thanks Ward!

[khollister]

On my 2005 and my brand new 2016, there were no GFI receptacles - all of the 120VAC receptacles and the fridge were on the same branch circuit fed by a GFCI breaker in the electrical panel.

One circuit breaker should have a test button in addition to the lever - follow Howie's advice to cycle it OFF then ON. If the breaker trips, you usually cannot return it to ON until cycling it. The insidious thing is that it will feel like the lever is in the ON position, but it's not.

The other possibility is that the GFCI breaker feeding that circuit is not seated completely in the panel.

And finally, the breaker may just be defective - it happens.

The normal failure mode for GFCI breakers is they start tripping for no apparent reason and then eventually will not reset at all.

I always carry a spare (although they are expensive little bastards - $30-45 depending on where you get them). Zoro.com has the Siemens QP series pretty cheaply. Check the label on the back of your panel cover - most recent AS panels I have seen take BR or QP series breakers. Home Depot usually has this stuff too, but their prices on the GFCI one's are pretty high.

EDIT - oh, never mind - I see you figured it out

[nilesrob]

I have been having problems with my GFCI breaker in the distribution panel. A few days ago I turned off the GFCI breaker but then it would not turn back on. I read through this thread and decided I would try a new breaker since there had really been no changes - nothing plugged in, no heaters, dryers, nada.

Upon removing the old breaker, and just comparing it to the new one (to make sure I had the right replacement) I noticed that the old breaker was now able to turn off and on (there was no power to the trailer while I was doing all this). I reseated the old breaker back in the panel and turned on shore power. Ba da bing! All working properly.

I believe the problem was when I turned off the old breaker it must have unseated a bit from the panel. In retrospect when I was removing the panel cover in preparation to remove the breaker the cover was not properly secured. I am guessing that because of that the breaker was allowed to unseat sufficiently that it would not work.

I am keeping the new and unused breaker just in case. We get into pretty remote situations and it was amazing how many things don't work without that breaker. Just another item for the emergency repair kit!