Hot water heater issue
I just bought a used 2006 Adirondack camper and when I flip the switch to turn on the electric part of the hot water heater it throws the main breaker for the camper. I was assuming that it was the h...
Forum Discussion
thekevin wrote:
I was running the AC, fridge, most of the lights in the camper, a dorm fridge out front, and then turned on the water heater. I did try unplugging the dorm fridge and see if that did it but it still flipped it. I figure AC, fridge, water heater would all be running at the same time fairly often.
You are drawing more than 30 amps with all of that running by adding the water heater.
1400 watt water heater element at 120 volts = 11.66 amps
A/C running with low blower 1250 watts at 120 volts = 10.41 amps
Dorm refrigerator 375 watts at 120 volts = 3.125
RV refrigerator 960 watts at 120 volts = 8 amps
Converter 875 watts at 120 volts = 7.29 amps
TOTAL LOAD 40.485 AMPS
Now you know why the 30 amp breaker tripped
Without the water heater you were just under the 30 amp threshold, so when you added a big load like the water heater, you overloaded the 30 amp circuit and the main breaker did what it was designed to do.
