Bathroom AC socket blown

[mdmarmd]

My wife was using a travel hair dryer in the AC socket near the sink in our brand new Montana 3720 fifth wheel. It blew the ciruit and triggered the GFI socket that is in the kitchen island. But when I did the reset, all the sockets controlled by that GFI switch work but not the one in the bathroom. I took that socket off the was and tested the wires for voltage and there was none. I called Paul Everts in Fresno, CA where we bought the RV 2 month s ago and the service tech thought it probably had a separate fuse since people often use hair dryers on it and he said to check all the fuses. I thought the ATC style looked like they were for the 12 volt circuits but I tested them all for continuity with my meter and they were all intact. There is a row of AC relays below the fuses.
I flipped them all on and off multiple times and then tested them all and they all show 120 volts so they don't seem to be the problem.

I am 700 miles from Paul Everts and don't have my own truck as I have the RV towed back and forth to the lake each season. It took about $700 to tow it up to the lake so it would be twice that for the round trip. So I don't have any easy way to address this. Has anyone had circuits fail and had them successfully trouble shooted and fixed? It seems like it's impossible to know where they run these lines. That line heads up toward the ceiling but who knows where it goes after that. It also seems odd that it took out none of the other socket on that GFI circuit.

Anyway, if anyone has has circuit problems and solved them, I would appreciate any input.

[jcurtis934]

As the outlet is a 120vac outlet, it is controlled by the circuit breakers not the 12 vdc fuses as you found out. And given that the outlet is near water a gfci outlet is used next to the sink OR that outlet is controlled by a gfci breaker. My unit has a gfci in the kitchen to control outlets in the kitchen near the sink AND a gfci outlet in the bathroom that controls that sinks idea outlet as well as the outside outlet. If the controlling gfci won't reset when you push in the reset button, it is bad. Since you took off the bath outlet, did you hook up the ground wire (bare copper) to the ground screw, the black wire (120vac hot) to the gold color screw which is on the same side as the shorter vertical outlet contact and the white wire to the silver screw which is on the same side as the longer vertical outlet contact? It sounds to me like there is another gfci somewhere that controls the bath outlet and the hair dryer induced a large ground fault into the ground circuits to open both gfci outlets at the same time. Look for another gfci somewhere, like in the bedroom next to the bath.

[mdmarmd]

Thanks for your input. I did think that there might be another gfci somewhere else but the only one I can find is the one on the kitchen island. And I looked at all the sockets that I thought might have gfci protection, both inside and outside and all those sockets are hot and none have resets. The reset in the island is working.

Then I checked the wiring to the socket I actually tested for votage between the black and white wires. The wires are just pushed into brass inserts that cut through the insulation as the wire is pushed into wedges cut in the inserts. I just touched the bare wire that was exposed on each cut wire.

Any other ideas would be great.

[AZ Traveler]

I convinced my wife a hair dryer was not a must have after a similar issue.

[mdmarmd]

My wife read that and said to me, "Sorry your not going to convince me of that".

I think I don't have as much power as you do!

[AZ Traveler]

It may have cost me some and in the end I got the GFI circuit breaker replaced which fixed the problem.

[1retired06]

[QUOTE=mdmarmd;1075714]Thanks for your input. I did think that there might be another gfci somewhere else but the only one I can find is the one on the kitchen island. And I looked at all the sockets that I thought might have gfci protection, both inside and outside and all those sockets are hot and none have resets. The reset in the island is working.

Then I checked the wiring to the socket I actually tested for votage between the black and white wires. The wires are just pushed into brass inserts that cut through the insulation as the wire is pushed into wedges cut in the inserts. I just touched the bare wire that was exposed on each cut wire.

Any other ideas would be great.[/QUOTE

Did you look in the outside storage compartment? We have a GFI located there, controls inside circuits.

[BuilderBob]

Did you look in the basement storage and the one outside?


Bob & Carol
Tacoma WA
2017 352RL \ 2008 Dodge 3500 crew cab 4x4 6.7L

[mdmarmd]

Yes, there is one socket outside near the water heater and one inside the large storage compartment but neither of these has a reset and both are live.

That's what's puzzling to me. All the other gfci sockets work and there is only one reset in the kitchen island. It's like the one socket in the bathroom is an isolated circuit and its not working anymore.

[twindman]

Maybe you can turn of all AC 120V at post and disconnect batteries. Then with a insulated pliers short out the outlet in the bathroom with a paperclip or such. (just be careful)
Then check the continuity at the fuse box - if you can figure out which fuse it is. At least you would know if ther line is intact all the way.

[rohrmann]

Our rig has two GFI circuits, one in the kitchen and one in the bath, which also covers the outside outlet. The outlet that doesn't work, does it have reset buttons, or does it just have a sticker that says GFI protected? If the outlets are back wired, where they just push the ends of the wires into a spring loaded contact instead of wrapping the wire around a screw, it is possible that that is where the failed connection is, and it might be failed at the next outlet upstream from the failed outlet where that wire is pushed into that outlet. My wife has tripped the bath GFI a couple of times, so now she plugs her hair drier into a non-GFI outlet and has no problem. Again, fuses are strictly 12 volts DC, so they have nothing to do with your 120 volt AC outlets, and those are only controlled by the circuit breakers.

[WeBeFulltime]

Does your Montana have an outside entertainment center with an outlet you might be overlooking?

[mdmarmd]

That was a good thought regarding the outside TV. I have one but I checked and the socket is not gfci protected and it is hot. I have not tried to short the socket and try and test for continuity at the relays yet. Perhaps I may have to if nothing else works. I did test the leads at the socket and got some confusing voltages. Can anyone interpret these findings for me?

[Ishler]

From your readings I'd say you have an open neutral between that outlet and the feed to it. I agree that since it's in the bathroom it should be on a GFIC. It's possible that the downstream feed from the GFIC is bad. If you trip the GFIC the 124v to ground should go away. If not you haven't found the correct GFIC yet.

[mdmarmd]

So I tested the voltage across the hot and ground lines in the socket and they showed a steady 124v. When I tripped the GFCI on the kitchen island the voltage dropped to 0 and returned to 124v when the GFCI was reset. So that proves its on the same circuit and there isn’t another GFCI hidden somewhere

I’m curious, is there a reason why there is 89v between the neutral and ground? That doesn’t make sense to me.

I did also check the socket while flipping each relay and found one 15 amp relay that feeds the whole GFCI circuit.

So I am assuming that since the hot wire to the bathroom is intact, there must be a break in the neutral circuit to the bathroom. Since all the other GFCI sockets work, it seems the bathroom must daisy chain off of one of the other sockets. The most likely candidates seem to be the socket in the hold or on the outside since these are below, but in proximity to the bathroom. But the AC line in the bathroom goes up toward the ceiling and not down to the floor. So that is puzzling. Maybe it goes over the bathroom and down on the other side of the shower as the breaker box is just behind the shower area.

I will check the two outside GFCI sockets to see if they daisy chain somewhere and if the neutral line might be compromised for some reason.

If I am completely unable to find where the neutral from the bathroom disconnects, is it possible to feed a neutral from another line to the socket, say from the AC socket in the bedroom that is just on the other side of the wall from the bathroom socket. Unfortunately they are separated by a pocket door so you would still have to bring a neutral from the bedroom, up and across the pocket door in the ceiling and then down to the bathroom socket. Would doing this defeat the GFCI? I assume this is more likely related to the hot/ground wires, but what do I know.

By the way, does anyone know how the 4 inch LED dome lights in a Montana come off? They don’t twist like the manually operated ones do. I assume it is a snap or compression fitting but they are so tight that I don’t want to pry them off and risk cracking the lens unless I know this is the proper removal procedure.

Anyway, all who have contributed have helped me try to work through this and I appreciate your input a lot.

[BB_TX]

You cannot run a separate neutral to a slave outlet. The hot wire and the neutral wire must both come from the load side of the GFCI outlet. Otherwise the GFCI would see a current imbalance between the hot and neutral and it would trip.

If you have some extra long meter leads, check the voltage between the suspect outlet hot leg to the neutral leg of the related GFCI outlet. Then check the hot leg of the GFCI outlet to the neutral leg of the suspect outlet. You should measure 120 vac both ways. If you are getting 120 vac the first way but not the second, that would confirm a bad neutral. How they daisy chained the slave outlets to the GFCI outlet is anyone's guess. Google will bring up diagrams of how they should be wired.

[BuilderBob]

It's weird that you have 2 GFCI on the same circuit when one will do if it is wired correctly
are's has one for the kitchen plugs and one for the bathroom & and outside. But it sounds
like your problem is in the neutral going back to the panel the diagrams aren't any good at all have you mounted any thing to the bathroom wall that may have gone through and
cut the neutral I saw that one time before or you need to check out the other plugs on that circuit.

Bob & Carol
Tacoma WA
2017 352RL \ 2008 Dodge 3500 DRW crew cab 4x4 6.7L

[mdmarmd]

BB TX It sounds like you understand more about the electrical side of things. Can you explain to me why the bathroom socket gets 124v from hot to ground, 89v from neutral to hot and 17v from neutral to ground? Is that what you would expect to see with a faulty neutral?

Builder Bob, I may have confused you by not using proper terminology. When I refered to GFCI sockets, I meant they were GFCI protected sockets. The only actual GFCI with the reset was one of the sockets on the kitchen island.

See the diagram attached

[jimcol]

I use a toner amplifier similar to this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Southwire-A...Meter/50133086 Have found many electrical problems as the toner will generally take you to the next outlet or wire termination. If you know anyone in the telephone or cable tv business they should have a similar tester.

[BuilderBob]

So the one in the bath is GFC protected only the reset is in the kitchen island correct. If that is correct then you have a short in the neutral.