Electrical issue: GFCI tripping

[Chaseurs]

Our Monty is a 2021 3120RL

Electrical question
Three times in the last 10 days the GFCI in the bathroom has tripped. Each time about 7 am, after we have been up since 6 am having our morning coffee. The first two times I reset the GFCI and everything went back to normal. Today was a different story.

1-Tried reset – tripped after 2 seconds
2. Unplugged coffee maker, that had been on for an hour. Brewing was finished and only on warming mode. New fireplace (replaced in October 2024) went off after GFCI initially tripped. Tried reset – tripped after 2 seconds
3. Unplugged everything else. Two computers, two TV’s, air fryer, CPAP machine, turned refrigerator to gas. None of the above were actually turned on. Tried reset – tripped after 2 seconds.
4. Looked everywhere to see if I missed anything. None. Tried reset – stayed reset.
Question 1: Any suggestions?
Question 2: Is there only one GFCI in my trailer? Isn’t every outlet supposed to be protected? I have diagrammed every breaker in the main panel, and which outlets are controlled, and which ones are protected by the GFCI: Bathroom, outlets on each end of the island, outside outlet near the entry door and the outlet in the basement.

Starting to draw blood from scratching my head.
Thanks
Doug

[AZ Traveler]

Doug,

Only outlets near water are required to be protected by a GFCI. You may want to look at how your rig is wired. To fixed your immediate issue try replacing the GFCI.

[Bourbon County]

GFCI outlets can be wired to protect up to three common outlets downstream. The RV industry takes full advantage of this. The outlet that's tripping may not be the source or location of the ground fault. These are pretty sensitive and doesn't take much to trip.

First: with everything unplugged and power still on, push the test trip button on the outlet that's tripping. Take your tester and see which other common outlet(s) don't have power. There can be both GFCI and common outlets on the same breaker so don't turn it off. If the outdoor outlet is protected by that one, this would be my first suspect. Have you had any rain or other precipitation on the three days you mentioned? If no precip, are you having a lot of condensate/dew dripping down the outer skin of your rig that time of day? Just a little moisture intrusion can cause an outdoor outlet to trip.

There's a couple of things you can try. Check the caulk joint between the outlet cover and camper skin; recaulk if suspect. Secondly, pull the outlet and give the terminal screws a quick tightness check, using common electrical tape, make several wraps around the receptacle body covering the terminal screws completely. Ideal makes a product called the "Armor Band" which is basically a big rubber band for this purpose, but tape is quite adequate. When you reinstall it, check the orientation; If it's mounted horizontally make sure the U-shaped ground hole is turned to your left. This sounds stupid, I know, but that will put the neutral and ground terminals up and the hot side terminals down and much less likely to be exposed to any moisture intrusion.

If your basement outlet is downstream form the one tripping, check to see if you have any slight plumbing leaks dripping on it. Maybe someone taking a shower, brushing teeth, etc at that time of mooring? If you do find moisture there, obviously fix the leak and you can do same procedure as above less the caulking.

I can't imagine your fireplace being on a GFCI, but if it is, check your line connections there. There should be no copper showing behind the wire nuts on the insulated wires.

Lastly, GFCIs can go bad. Even the specification grade ones used commercially go bad; you can only imagine the quality of the ones the RV industry uses. By tripping that infrequently and the repeatability I doubt the GFCI nor the wiring are your problem.

Let us know what if anything you find.

[BB_TX]

If the wiring guy did his job correctly, any outlet wired downstream of a GFCI outlet should have a label on it “GFCI Protected”. That would indicate a standard outlet protected by a GFCI outlet located somewhere else.

[Cat320]

I had a similar issue....replaced the GFI, it was bad.

[Daryles]

As mentioned above, they can daisey chain a few receptacles downstream of the GFCI.
The only way to tell what receptacle is causing the issue is to disconnect the downstream receptacles one by one until the problem goes away. This can be a real pain with these RV receptacles since the wiring is punched down into the contacts.

[Foldbak]

Replaced with residential GFI

[R Time Soon]

I wouldn’t count on the electrician hooking up the receptacles being the same
Person who does the labeling. Could be the person doing the systems testing or someone in QC that just applies all the various labels, warning tags etc.

[Gonefishing]

I would start with any outlets that are outside and in the compartments. I have found that in very cold weather the dampness will trip an outside gfci.

[Chaseurs]

Update to my original post.
Tripped again a couple days ago. I had to turn off the switch to the electric element for the water heater to get the GFCI to reset. Did the same thing this morning. Also, my bulldog hard wired surge protector gave a message that the voltage coming in had either dropped below 104 or exceeded 132 volts.
Really confusing since the electrical circuit to the water heater runs through the main panel and is only remotely associated with the GFCI circuit.
We’ll be moving to a different RV park in a couple weeks. I’ll see how everything goes at that park and also have a better opportunity to pick up some replacement components.

[Carl n Susan]

The water heater is not on a GFCI circuit. Check the power and ground connections is the power panel (where the breakers are).

[BB_TX]

Water heater should not be in a GFCI outlet. But never assume anything with there rigs. My fridge was wired to my ceiling fan switch. Fan on/fridge worked. Fan off/fridge didn’t work. Took a while to figure that one out.