We purchased our 2020 380FL in March of 2020 new.
Excuse the long post but I wanted to give the whole story so hopefully it makes since as to why I made these changes.
This problem revolves around the 120v wiring for the kitchen slide, the buffet and the dinette slide. The changes to the stock trailer is that I have added a small 2cu ft freezer that sits on top of the buffet (for the ice cream since the Norcold won't keep it frozen) while parked, an air fryer/toaster oven that sits on the buffet shelf, floor lamp that sits behind the theater seats for reading light, laptop charger that is plugged in behind the theater seats, iPad charger and EarPods charger plugged in next to the theater seats and a heated water hose that is plugged in to the socket in the nautilus area.
We have had an issue with the refrigerator breaker tripping while using the air fryer if the small freezer kicks on. This was a small inconvenience as it didn't seem to happen very often and as I think back on it, it probably only seemed to happen in the winter.
The first winter it was just the wife and myself, since then my youngest daughter has had a child and is raising her by herself so that means that we help take care of the grand baby. So this required some changes I removed the dinette table and put a baby bed in its place creating a little nursery. The problem with this area is that the heater does not keep that the lower kitchen dinette area as warm as the upper living room and bedroom areas, due to the placement of the thermostat that controls the heater being higher up on the bedroom wall. This is fine with normal sleeping arrangements, bedroom and living room. But because heat rises, the bedroom is either too hot or the dinette area is too cold.
Our solution was to add a small space heater, the problem is that if you plug in a space heater to the dinette socket it immediately trips the refrigerator breaker. So I had to run an extension cord (25’ 10ga) up to the plug next to the tv in order to prevent this from happening.
All of this info to let you know why I traced the wiring and what all I found and my solution. While tracing the wiring in order to find out what all was on the refrigerator breaker I discovered that even though the microwave is on its own breaker that the rest of the kitchen slide, the dinette slide, the buffet socket, the socket behind the theater seats, the socket beside the theater seats, the socket that the vacuum is plugged into and also the plug in the nautilus are all on the refrigerator breaker. Seeing that most things that require high amperages would normally be used in the kitchen and buffet area this seemed like an overloaded circuit, we don’t drink coffee so that would have even added another item to the mix.
From this socket that the vacuum is plugged into under the stairs and behind the basement wall are 2 other black Romex wires that go towards the back of the trailer. Using a volt meter and disconnecting one at a time I determined that one went to the kitchen slide and one went to the dinette slide.
The solution that I came up with was to remove the 2 slides wiring from the socket and add extensions to them using ideal push in wire connectors and 12/2 Romex. I moved the original wire from the refrigerator breaker that now feeds the buffet, sockets at theater seats, socket in nautilus and vacuum to the unused dryer breaker. When we purchased the RV I installed a washer and dryer, the units are stackable GE units and the dryer is 240v so instead of using other mods that are out there I installed a single 240v breaker sub panel and ran dedicated wire from the forward basement to the washer dryer closet in the rear, so this left the existing dryer socket unused. I ran the kitchen slide extension into the breaker box and put it on the original refrigerator breaker. I then ran the dinette slide extension into the breaker box and added it to the general breaker as this is the one that controls the sockets near the tv and doesn’t seem to be overloaded the whole time running the electronics and the space heater.
The temperatures in Lubbock made it down to the low 30’s so I was able to run a load test on all of the circuits and then I ran a load test on the trailer. I do not have an amp meter attachment for my voltmeter but plan to get one. My un-scientific test was to run everything plugged into each circuit for about 10 minutes and see if any breakers tripped or had a problem, didn’t have any. I load tested the trailer by turning on everything including both AC units with the fireplace, space heater, air fryer, microwave, dryer, freezer door open so the compressor was running and the refrigerator on in order to see what the load was, I do have a progressive surge protector and it showed that the load on L1 was 43 amps and the load on L2 was 44 amps.
In conclusion, it seems a little short sided that all of these sockets are on a single 15amp breaker. I do not believe I am overloading the system. I don’t think we will ever really run the AC units while the heaters are on but I wanted to make sure that I did not reach 50 amps on startup of any of the appliances with everything on.
If you have any questions or think I should do something different let me know.
Excuse the long post but I wanted to give the whole story so hopefully it makes since as to why I made these changes.
This problem revolves around the 120v wiring for the kitchen slide, the buffet and the dinette slide. The changes to the stock trailer is that I have added a small 2cu ft freezer that sits on top of the buffet (for the ice cream since the Norcold won't keep it frozen) while parked, an air fryer/toaster oven that sits on the buffet shelf, floor lamp that sits behind the theater seats for reading light, laptop charger that is plugged in behind the theater seats, iPad charger and EarPods charger plugged in next to the theater seats and a heated water hose that is plugged in to the socket in the nautilus area.
We have had an issue with the refrigerator breaker tripping while using the air fryer if the small freezer kicks on. This was a small inconvenience as it didn't seem to happen very often and as I think back on it, it probably only seemed to happen in the winter.
The first winter it was just the wife and myself, since then my youngest daughter has had a child and is raising her by herself so that means that we help take care of the grand baby. So this required some changes I removed the dinette table and put a baby bed in its place creating a little nursery. The problem with this area is that the heater does not keep that the lower kitchen dinette area as warm as the upper living room and bedroom areas, due to the placement of the thermostat that controls the heater being higher up on the bedroom wall. This is fine with normal sleeping arrangements, bedroom and living room. But because heat rises, the bedroom is either too hot or the dinette area is too cold.
Our solution was to add a small space heater, the problem is that if you plug in a space heater to the dinette socket it immediately trips the refrigerator breaker. So I had to run an extension cord (25’ 10ga) up to the plug next to the tv in order to prevent this from happening.
All of this info to let you know why I traced the wiring and what all I found and my solution. While tracing the wiring in order to find out what all was on the refrigerator breaker I discovered that even though the microwave is on its own breaker that the rest of the kitchen slide, the dinette slide, the buffet socket, the socket behind the theater seats, the socket beside the theater seats, the socket that the vacuum is plugged into and also the plug in the nautilus are all on the refrigerator breaker. Seeing that most things that require high amperages would normally be used in the kitchen and buffet area this seemed like an overloaded circuit, we don’t drink coffee so that would have even added another item to the mix.
From this socket that the vacuum is plugged into under the stairs and behind the basement wall are 2 other black Romex wires that go towards the back of the trailer. Using a volt meter and disconnecting one at a time I determined that one went to the kitchen slide and one went to the dinette slide.
The solution that I came up with was to remove the 2 slides wiring from the socket and add extensions to them using ideal push in wire connectors and 12/2 Romex. I moved the original wire from the refrigerator breaker that now feeds the buffet, sockets at theater seats, socket in nautilus and vacuum to the unused dryer breaker. When we purchased the RV I installed a washer and dryer, the units are stackable GE units and the dryer is 240v so instead of using other mods that are out there I installed a single 240v breaker sub panel and ran dedicated wire from the forward basement to the washer dryer closet in the rear, so this left the existing dryer socket unused. I ran the kitchen slide extension into the breaker box and put it on the original refrigerator breaker. I then ran the dinette slide extension into the breaker box and added it to the general breaker as this is the one that controls the sockets near the tv and doesn’t seem to be overloaded the whole time running the electronics and the space heater.
The temperatures in Lubbock made it down to the low 30’s so I was able to run a load test on all of the circuits and then I ran a load test on the trailer. I do not have an amp meter attachment for my voltmeter but plan to get one. My un-scientific test was to run everything plugged into each circuit for about 10 minutes and see if any breakers tripped or had a problem, didn’t have any. I load tested the trailer by turning on everything including both AC units with the fireplace, space heater, air fryer, microwave, dryer, freezer door open so the compressor was running and the refrigerator on in order to see what the load was, I do have a progressive surge protector and it showed that the load on L1 was 43 amps and the load on L2 was 44 amps.
In conclusion, it seems a little short sided that all of these sockets are on a single 15amp breaker. I do not believe I am overloading the system. I don’t think we will ever really run the AC units while the heaters are on but I wanted to make sure that I did not reach 50 amps on startup of any of the appliances with everything on.
If you have any questions or think I should do something different let me know.
