GFI Tripping

[BobbyDale]

Just survived our first frigid (16degrees) night here in the panhandle of Florida. Only our second night in our Fuzion. ( really newbies). As I was making coffee the GFI kept tripping. I finally set the frig on LP and was able to finish coffee. Is this the norm? The GFI is a 15 amp breaker! Thanks for all replies!

[RustyJC]

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

[VintageRacer]

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

[WyoTraveler]

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.