GFI Tripping

BobbyDale wrote:
I did and still do have an eletric heater plugged in the garage. I was assuming it was on a separate breaker. Would I need to unplug the heater while I make coffee?

Maybe. Did they both stop working when the GFI tripped?

Where you able to make coffee and run fridge before cold snap? If so perhaps your problem is excess condensation causing a fround fault. Just a tought?

I did and still do have an eletric heater plugged in the garage. I was assuming it was on a separate breaker. Would I need to unplug the heater while I make coffee?

Our kitchen has three separate circuits, all GFI. You would think any newer fiver would have the kitchen circuits split up like that anymore.

You most likely have a bad heating element in the fridge. Absorption-type RV refrigerators use heat to cool (I know, it seems counterintuitive) with the heat coming from either an electric heating element or a propane burner. If the heating element is leaking current to its grounded sheath (not uncommon), it will trip a GFCI-protected circuit. A replacement heating element will most likely take care of your problem.

Edit: Sorry, I misread your post. If your fridge ran OK on electric without the coffee pot, it's probably OK. If the fridge will run independently and the coffee pot will run independently without tripping the GFCI but the breaker trips when you run them together, I suspect you're tripping the breaker due to overload, not the GFCI due to a ground fault.

Rusty

Is the breaker tripping from an overload, or is the GFCI tripping because of a ground fault. It sounds like it's just a simple overload if you were able to set the fridge onf LP and removing that load solved the problem. A coffee maker is quite a high load which is why home kitchen outlets are now required to have dedicated breakers to each outlet. I would just set your fridge on propane, leave it there, and stop overloading your circuits. If you have other outlets on other breakers that you can use, spread the loads among them.

Brian

Assuming you are running 50 amp, it shouldn't happen. Are you also running extra electric heaters since it is 16 degrees. I was in a RV park last year and had circuit breaker problems. It was the park wiring.