Had motor home plugged into house for over a week then started getting motor home ready for the summer. Flushed water system and noticed water heater was on but did not have water in it. Have everything off but keep Tripping gfi in garage. Was working OK. Can't figure out. Use 15 amp adapter to connect to garage was working. Not sure what is causing it to trip?

sometimes there is something else on the same line inside the house. We had a problem at a friends house whenever their freezer in their basement kicked on. turns out it was on the same line as the garage outlet we were using.

In our house the garage gfi is also part of the master bath gfi circuit. Wife drys here hair while I am using power tools in the garage and click goes the breaker. Would love to separate it out but just not worth the cost. Maybe one of these days. Could the water heater have fried and causing an excessive draw?

got to make sure all three lines are being used all the way from the 120VAC receptacle to the trailer shore power cable. Might be no ground wired to your receptacle in the garage also....Pick up one of those 120VAC circuit testers. This will tell you if the proper circuit connections are present...In my case it is usually the other way around. MfyGFCI in the trailer trips haha...Roy Ken

Trip all circuits in motorhome to off. Plug in motorhome to garage gfi. Turn on and then back off each motorhome circuit until gfi trips. You now know what circuit in the motorhome may have a ground fault or has a appliance on with a greater than 15 amp draw such as the AC, Water Heater, microwave, etc. If none of the circuits trip the GFI by themselves then turn on one and then the next until you overload the gfi. At least you may be able to isolate the cause somewhat this way.

The strange thing is that it was working for over a week. Had ac and microwave circuit breaker off to try and isolate. Even removed one of the leads to water water but still tripped. Water heater does not appear to be fried. It works on the generator with no problem. I was thinking the same thing that is why I tried it on the generator. Even tried a different outlet on the house which was not in the garage.

Tripping gfi in garage when plugging into garage

jgellis586
Explorer
May 20, 2017
Update replaced gfci with same result. Next step is to replace the heater element hope to get that next week. Will let u know the result.
Thanks for all the suggestions.
luvlabs
Explorer
May 21, 2017
RVs are constantly causing house/garage GFIs to trip. Why? RVs use a different grounding scheme to account for generators, inverters, and other sources of A/C power. Your RV is protected by GFI outlets and you do not need to plug into a protected outlet. Install a power panel (50 amp or 30 amp plugs with no GFI) and nothing will trip. 30 amp is the easiest as it only requires a single breaker and 10 gauge wire to wire to code.

As an alternate, plug into a non-GFI outlet in your house.
bagman
Explorer
May 21, 2017
Absolutely, we had two 30 AMP RV electrical connections in our garage, but our garage is 37' X 42' with two 18' overhead garage doors. I concur with the poster above me! Bags.
time2roll
Nomad
May 21, 2017
Fix the ground fault. The fault is incorrectly using the ground as a conductor.
jgellis586
Explorer
May 30, 2017
Update have riled out hot water heater element. Took to Tv place and it was ok. I am now thinking that the charger is tripping gfi due to amps required on startup. Disconnected battery and was able to connect with no tripping. Will be taking battery to auto store tomorrow to have them check battery. Rv is only a year old but not sure why battery won't hold charge. Will let u know what I find. It explains how it was working before.
DrewE
Explorer II
May 30, 2017
jgellis586 wrote:
Update have riled out hot water heater element. Took to Tv place and it was ok. I am now thinking that the charger is tripping gfi due to amps required on startup. Disconnected battery and was able to connect with no tripping. Will be taking battery to auto store tomorrow to have them check battery. Rv is only a year old but not sure why battery won't hold charge. Will let u know what I find. It explains how it was working before.

A ground fault interrupter does not trip due to overcurrent. It trips because of power leaking to ground or otherwise not returning by the neutral line. (A circuit breaker would trip because of excessive current draw.)

If your charger is tripping the GFI, then the charger is broken and needs repair or replacement.

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Tripping gfi in garage when plugging into garage

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