I have a 2007 Keystone Passport, as soon as I plug in my trailer to home power, the circuit breaker in my home kicks immediately. Nothing is turned on in the trailer, no A/C , nothing. I just want to charge the batteries. It used to work fine, now it kick the home breaker. Any ideas? Thanks

I am not an electrician but you may want to try a different extension cord if you are using one. I had one that would trip my breakers. Recently I had a box outside that when I plugged in, the breaker would pop. Turned out the outlet was in bad shape. I am sure it was 40 years old. Once I switched it out for a new outlet, it worked great.

Have you made sure that everything in the RV is turned off before plugging in? I had a coffee maker causing ours to kick off before. I've also had a problem with the actual RV plug itself having a loose connection which caused high resistance and popped the breaker.

Are you sure nothing is on? How about your electric water heater? What else is already on this same circuit in your house?Does this circuit breaker have a little white or yellow button on it indicating it is a GFCI breaker? If so then you may have a ground fault in the trailer you need to find instead of an overload or short.I would first try plugging into a different outlet, particularly one that is on a different circuit, to see if the problem goes away.

I'm guessing it shouldn't be too hard to pin point where the AC current is going to be coming from.My first thing would be to throw the main trailer circuit breaker to OFF before hooking up which means about the only thing you would in the mix would be your surge protector or possibly the 120VAC transfer contactor if you have an on-board generator setup..Not much else would be in the loop other than bad shore power cable and or connectors..If things come on up normal doing this then you can have all of the 120VAC Circuits in the OFF position and start with the main breaker first then turn ON each of sub breakers on until one trips your house breaker.You would think an overload on the trailer side would always trip the trailer breaker first but that sometimes is not always what happens. It could be your house breaker for the trailer circuit is going weak as well tripping with a smaller load then it should.On the trailer side the on-board converter can offer a pretty good load to the main breaker if you catch it in the boast charge mode when initially plugging into the house. Hot water heaters and other large current units can also play games with you...You just have start bringing thing up one at a time until you find the problemRoy Ken

Well, absolutely everything is turned off in the trailer. The home circuit is a gfi breaker, I just push the button to reset. I don't think it's the home breaker, I run my compressor, power washer etc off this circuit. The shore power cable does have some cracks in it next to the metal prongs. It could be the shore cable as suggested. I tried turning off the trailer main ac breaker, and no home breaker kicked off. But it did kick off the home breaker as soon as I turned on the trailer main breaker. Unless there's any other suggestions, it looks like a new cable to me. Thanks a bunch.

Home circuit breaker kicks with trailer connected

DonkeyEars
Explorer
May 19, 2014
Thanks for the input everyone. It turns out the shore power cord was bad. I put in a new one and it works great. Thanks again
beemerphile1
Explorer
May 19, 2014
You have a ground fault.

Research ground fault and how a GFCI works.
stevemorris
Explorer
May 19, 2014
excellent point about the gfci

most trailers have at least one gfci and if the traileris plugged into a gfci protected circuit, things will go funny
myredracer
Explorer II
May 19, 2014
Because your home breaker does not trip when you have the trailer main breaker turned off but trips when turned back, that would indicate a ground fault somewhere on a branch circuit in the trailer. I would turn off ALL branch breakers in the converter panel and one by one, turn a branch breaker on and off until you find one that trips the house breaker. There are a number of things that can cause a ground fault inside an RV, one of which is a faulty heater element. If it appears that it is the element, try turning the heater off at the switch at the heater and see if the house breaker still trips. If it does, it should be a faulty element.

A weak or defective GFCI receptacle (or breaker) is the last thing that should be suspected. If they trip on ground fault (and not from overload or short circuit), then it is just doing it's job and protecting someone from a shock.

BTW, having GFI receptacles in series is not a great idea. Not unsafe but they can "fight" each other and one or the other can trip. For example, you could actually have a ground fault downstream of a GFI receptacle in the trailer but the house GFI is tripping instead.

DonkeyEars wrote:
Well, absolutely everything is turned off in the trailer. The home circuit is a gfi breaker, I just push the button to reset. I don't think it's the home breaker, I run my compressor, power washer etc off this circuit. The shore power cable does have some cracks in it next to the metal prongs. It could be the shore cable as suggested. I tried turning off the trailer main ac breaker, and no home breaker kicked off. But it did kick off the home breaker as soon as I turned on the trailer main breaker. Unless there's any other suggestions, it looks like a new cable to me. Thanks a bunch.
a-d-s
Explorer
May 19, 2014
I had same problem as the previous poster with the hot water hearing element. $10 fix. Easiest way to check us to disconnect the hot wire at the panel that goes to the heater and plug it in again. That is if you are comfortable working around electricity.
westend
Explorer
May 19, 2014
I would suggest you start with the shore power cord. Check with your meter if there is continuity between ground, neutral, or hot.
rvingfun
Explorer
May 19, 2014
My electric heating element on the hot water was fried (my fault since I forgot the bypass valve after winterizing) causing my house gfi to pop. That's how I knew it was element. As soon as I changed the element, problem solved.
Beachums
Explorer
May 19, 2014
Kill everything at the converter, disconnect the batteries and isolate their leads if necessary. Plug it back in to your house. If it trips again, I would plug in the shore power cable without the TT plugged in to the other side...... that should give you a good idea where the problem is after you get through those steps.
One other thing, not to insult, but how well do you know that breaker circuit? Sometimes the garage circuit is tied to several outside receptacles as well as receptacles in one or more bathrooms. This is done to meet code for GFCI requirements and save money by putting the GFCI at the "top" of the circuit. The cheap skates that built my house did it that way.....it sucks
dodge_guy
Explorer II
May 19, 2014
Is the GFI outlet bad? I`ve seen those go bad before. does the trailer work OK in a campground?
DonkeyEars
Explorer
May 19, 2014
My batteries are at 2/3 full according to the meter. I'm using the same ext. cord and converter plug I've been using for 5 years with no issues. I use this at home to keep the batteries charged, but now it kicks the home breaker. Don't know, from what I'm reading here could be a number of things..