Fronntenac Park Minnesota
October 15, 1997
Stepping out into the darkness, the wind whistled through the stand of birch trees behind the motorhome and swirled around the motorhome. The weather was growing colder. Something cold and wet landed on my bare, bald head. “Guess it is a wet birch leaf,” I thought. Brushing it off with my bare hand, I decided that it was too cold to be a leaf. Turning on the flashlight, very large, white, wet snowflakes were observed blowing horizontally through the air. Yesterday it had been almost 80 F, now it was about 35 F and we were experiencing the first snow this fall. The reason for being outside in the cold is the subject of this discourse. One of the “laws” of the RV lifestyle is a variation of Murphy’s law: “When something goes wrong with a motorhome that requires outside work, it will take place during the worst imaginable weather conditions.”
After checking into the Frontenac State Park overlooking Pepin Lake in Minnesota, we found our site for the night and plugged the land-line electric cable into the 30 amp outlet. Hoping to take the chill out of the air, I turned on both electrical heaters. Soon our house on wheels was warm so I lowered the thermostat and the heaters stopped. After watching TV for a while, the circuit breaker clicked and we were without electricity. Outside, I flipped the breaker switch back on and everything was back to normal. About 30 minutes before sundown we went for a hike down the bluff toward the Mississippi River on a park trail. After unintentionally causing a couple of young eagles to take flight, we returned. The sun had set and it was growing dark. The electricity was off when we entered the motorhome. Flipping on the breaker switch, we again had electricity. Then, about every 10 minutes or so, the breaker would switch off for no apparent reason. Were we overloading the system by pulling too great a load? No! I could run both heaters simultaneously and it would not cause the breaker to switch off. The breaker switched off only when there was a very low load on the system.
Not wanting to use our expensive propane by running the furnace, I was determined to use electricity provided by the park and for which we had paid. It was dark, snowing, and cold when I decided on an alternate strategy. I ran a 20 amp, extension cord under a door and into the motorhome to power one of the electric heaters, hoping that if some overload of the 30 amp circuit was causing the problem, I would still have some heat in the motorhome. This system worked to perfection and never caused any circuit breaker problems. But it could not handle all of the other electrical appliances such as the microwave, TV, VCR, coffee maker, toaster, etc. The 30 amp system would be necessary to run these other appliances but it would not stay on. Tiring of leaving my warm nest to repeatedly turn on the breaker, I decided to run another 20 amp extension cord to the neighboring electric outlet box. Connecting it to a 20 to 30 amp converter, I rigged the 30 amp system so that it would run on 20 amps. I was working in the dark with a flashlight. A low hanging tree limb - not revealed in the flashlight beam - knocked my glasses onto the leaf litter. But my efforts were to no avail - the neighboring circuit breaker also switched off after working for a few minutes. The one small electrical heater was not keeping us warm. Tiring of the whole mess, I turned on the propane furnace and went to bed.
During the night, I slept poorly and while awake reviewed the electrical problem, trying to find a solution. Did the problem arise from the motorhome or the park’s electrical system? The state park electrical outlet had a ground-fault system as a safety mechanism to prevent hazardous electrical shocks. Maybe, when our neighbors turned on some electrical appliance, it was somehow triggering our ground fault system. Once, when the electrical spark of our 12-volt system lighted the propane water heater, the circuit was broken. Another time, when the electric heater came on, it happened again. But, usually, there was no electrical event in our motorhome to which the circuit breaker could be linked.
The next day, I looked out the bedroom window and voila! There was the electrical box close enough so that I could reach it through the window. At least tonight, it would not be necessary to go out into the cold to switch the breaker. Then I remembered that the breaker switch had never activated when a heavy load was placed on the system. Plugging the 30 amp landline into the 30 amp outlet, I turned on an electric heater and left it on. We had no more electrical problems even if we added to the electrical load by running other appliances. Now, I need a good electrician to explain the most likely reason why this breaker switch misbehaved so irrationally when there was no load on the system. The reason remains a mystery to me. We have stayed at two parks since then with no additional problem. Apparently, the problem resides in a faulty electrical system in the park electrical outlets and not in Serendipity (our motorhome). However, this problem reminded me of a similar problem we experienced in our old motorhome (Aristotle). A small short in the microwave caused a ground fault, breaker problem and cost hundreds of dollars to find.
So what do you think? Does this admission that RVing has its imperfections change your perception of the lifestyle?
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