Refrigerator Blowing Breaker

So it trips open the 15 amp or 20 amp breaker in the main house panel?
And you are sure that breaker is not a GFI breaker?

A non-GFI breaker will have the single hot wire connected. GFI breaker will have an additional wire.

Very odd for a heating element to operate on 30 amp power and then trip a standard 15 amp breaker. If drawing that much power the element would just burn out and quit.

Just now got a chance to look at this until last night and I thank you for your inputs in helping me trouble shoot.

Here are some answers to the questions.

Water heater is LP.

There isn't a converter/charger. Just the breaker panel and fuse box.

While camping I am able to use the campgrounds 30amp service and it runs off the power while I turn the LP off.

I have isolated the breaker that is tripping the GFI inside the trailer to the frig and turn off all others while troubleshooting the issue. I plugged directly into the frig through the panel on the side of the trailer with the same result.

I am tried numerous 110 outlets (with and without GFI)

BB_TX - yes it only trips the GFI not the breaker in the trailer.

After reviewing all the posts it sounds like my heating element is bad and needs to be replaced.

Yes.. Complete agreement

MrWizard wrote:
The fridge by itself, will not trip a 20 amp breaker
But it can add 3 or 4 amps to an already heavily loaded circuit
To trip the breaker for that circuit at home

But i agree with everyone who thinks the heating element is bad

Correct, but almost ALL garage and outside receptacles are on a GFCI breaker which will trip from a defective Heat Element. It is NOT the Load, but the Imbalance between the White(Neutral) and HOT (Black) that trips a GFCI. Doug

The fridge by itself, will not trip a 20 amp breaker
But it can add 3 or 4 amps to an already heavily loaded circuit
To trip the breaker for that circuit at home

But i agree with everyone who thinks the heating element is bad

BB_TX wrote:

Chris Bryant wrote:
What Doug said- keep in mind the refrigerator has a 5-7 amp fuse on it, so it's not going to trip a 20 amp breaker due to overload.

Is that fuse for the 12 volt side or the 120 vac side?

3 amp for the 12 volt side, 5 or 7.5 amp for the 120 volt side- usually 5 amp.

Chris Bryant wrote:
What Doug said- keep in mind the refrigerator has a 5-7 amp fuse on it, so it's not going to trip a 20 amp breaker due to overload.

Is that fuse for the 12 volt side or the 120 vac side?

What Doug said- keep in mind the refrigerator has a 5-7 amp fuse on it, so it's not going to trip a 20 amp breaker due to overload.

The refer Element is NOT blowing the breaker. It HAS to be tripping a GFCI breaker system. That means you have a 120 element in the refer that has an imbalance between the White and Black HOT 120 wiring. NOT enough to trip a 120 breaker, but enough to trip a GFCI and it still will work on a non GFCI breaker. Replace the 120 heat element and your problem goes away. Doug

I dislike the term 'blowing a breaker or fuse' It don't blow, it either melts (fuse) or trips (thermal breaker). If it 'blows' you have issues other than a short to ground or a high amperage draw.

When I was a kid, there was no thermal breakers, glassine fuses or encased in plastic ATO style fuses. We had knob and tube wiring and the 'fuse box' was a series of screw terminals you bridged with (fuse wire), basically solder in various diameters that corresponded to different amperage draws and when the amperage exceed what the 'fuse' would carry, it melted and you corrected the problem and replaced the fuse wire.

Sounds to me like the cartridge heater (also called a Mullion Heater) is shorted to ground. Time to disconnect and replace.... and because the OP has tripped the breakers numerous times, if it was me, I'd be replacing the thermal breakers as well. Like I said previously, continual tripping of a thermal breaker lowers the threshold at which it trips.