2020 31MB Reflection. The gfci on the island occasionally trips. We see it when we get up in the morning. I reset it and there’s no problem for a couple days. Happens again and I reset it. No problem. Today it won’t reset. The only thing currently on the circuit is the sofa and outside refrigerator. Unplugged them both and still won’t reset. Anyone else have this problem?
GFCI trips
- Thread starter Imn23d
- Start date
Had that problem last spring. What I found was that there was a short in the wire that feeds our slide outlet. I determined that by pulling every outlet and disconnecting each of them one at a time. If it tripped the GFCI I put the outlet back in and went to the next one. Of course, it happened to be the very last outlet in the chain but once I removed the wire from it, the GFCI stopped tripping.
In our trailer every outlet is in one long daisy chain (with the exception of the microwave which has its own circuit and breaker). I assume yours has a couple of circuits for the outlets so you would have to determine which outlets are on that circuit and pull them one at a time and see which is tripping the GFCI. It's a good idea to check each for any burnt looking areas or melting anyway. This also helps you map your outlets in the circuit for future reference too. Someone might know a better way to do it but that's what worked for me.
This is also assuming that it isn't a bad GFCI as well. Mine was fine. I knew that because when I disconnected the wire feeding all the downstream outlets, it didn't trip unless I did it manually and it reset without any problem, and I could plug in a hair dryer without tripping it. Hope that helps.
In our trailer every outlet is in one long daisy chain (with the exception of the microwave which has its own circuit and breaker). I assume yours has a couple of circuits for the outlets so you would have to determine which outlets are on that circuit and pull them one at a time and see which is tripping the GFCI. It's a good idea to check each for any burnt looking areas or melting anyway. This also helps you map your outlets in the circuit for future reference too. Someone might know a better way to do it but that's what worked for me.
This is also assuming that it isn't a bad GFCI as well. Mine was fine. I knew that because when I disconnected the wire feeding all the downstream outlets, it didn't trip unless I did it manually and it reset without any problem, and I could plug in a hair dryer without tripping it. Hope that helps.
make sure the breaker is not tripped as GFCIs won't reset without 120V . GFCIs work by looking for an unbalanced load on the out going/ protected side of circuit, amont of current that goes thru + must come back thru on neutral . Could be telling you something is wrong such as grounded or the gfci is itself bad.
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Thanks riverbug, started to do similar to you. Main breaker is good as I disconnected the wires going to the outlets. Reset fine. Reconnected one set. No trip. Reconnected other wire and it tripped. So it is that string. So I’ll have to disconnect all outlets like you and work the problem. The confusing part is it only tripped during the night when nothing was on.
Thanks poobear, tested without wires coming out of gfci and it reset properly.
Ours started tripping like yours at random at first. Then all the sudden I just couldn't reset it one day. It never did trip the breaker, just the GFCI. But it did go from random to constant pretty quickly (like within the same week-long trip). Hope you can find the issue easily.
2021 31MB Reflection. Ironic that I just got back on this forum and just experienced the same GFCI issue on the island. Just left Ohio for south and trip around country so has been in storage for a few months. Mine has yellow light on. Googling it, it says in test mode but wouldn't reset, still yellow. I shut off breaker and checked for shorts with multi-meter in lines it serves and didn't show any. I just bought a new GFCI and will install tonight. Hopefully this solves and I'll report if it does.
Never assume GFCI outlet is good. They can and will go bad. Most of the time they trip and will not reset
Update on my Island GFCI with yellow light. I replaced the GFCI and everything is working now.
The GFCI in the bathroom of out Momentum 376THS tripped and wouldn't reset, taking three other outlets in the kitchen out as well. I replaced the GFCI and it still wouldn't reset. Luckily my son's father-in-law is an electrician and an RVer, using a tone tracer, we found a breaker box under the stairs (unmarked). One breaker was labeled GFCI. Once that was reset, all outlets worked fine and we haven't had an issue since. The original GFCI turned out to be faulty. would have been nice if GD had included a note in the manual about those four breakers.
Very true. However, the way to test a GFCI outlet is to disconnect the downstream circuit first. This eliminates any issue with outlets that are supplied by the GFCI outlet.
On my 2011 Jayco we purchased new never had a GFCI give trouble until living in it in 22 while building a house.
Kitchen GFCI started tripping . Would reset every time. After a couple days of this I changed it out. Worked fine for about a week then same nuisance tripping.
Started looking for the trouble spot. I finally end up at the breaker panel & checking there. I'm laying on my stomach stareing at the romex looking for anything and finally after 10 minutes of this I see it. RV panels are sub-feed wired so the neutrals are separate from the grounds. The neutral was on the ground bus & the gnd was on the neutral bus. Only romex tied down that way. Swapped the 2 wires and never had another fault
Kitchen GFCI started tripping . Would reset every time. After a couple days of this I changed it out. Worked fine for about a week then same nuisance tripping.
Started looking for the trouble spot. I finally end up at the breaker panel & checking there. I'm laying on my stomach stareing at the romex looking for anything and finally after 10 minutes of this I see it. RV panels are sub-feed wired so the neutrals are separate from the grounds. The neutral was on the ground bus & the gnd was on the neutral bus. Only romex tied down that way. Swapped the 2 wires and never had another fault
how do you determine downstream circuits? Do you need a wiring schematic? My 22rbx has the TV on the GFCI circuit but not the wall outlet on counter next to the door?
How do you know this? Have you tripped the GFCI and tested it? My guess is yours would be wired similar to my model, in which case all outlets in the trailer are on one long daisy chain starting with the breaker to bathroom GFCI, then all the others from there. My guess is you have 6 breakers in your panel; one for GFI, which are your outlets. The others are dedicated to a device or outlet for a specific device such as microwave. If you are looking at the outlets that have a GFCI sticker on them vs not, you should test it - the labels may have come off or never put on some of them.
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CedarCreekWoody
Senior Member
To isolate the downstream outlets disconnect the black wire on the GFCI that feeds those circuits.
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