** Note I use the term RV to mean any home on wheels such as: Motor-homes, 5th Wheels, Trailers, Tiny Homes, etc. **
Since a young age I have been in love with the idea of having a house I could take anywhere. I have my Great-Grandparents to thank for that for at the age of 12 they took me on a trip in their Motor-home up the west coast along the Pacific Coast Highway. I was in constant ‘Awe’ as we traveled from each 1000 Trails RV Parks’ along our route, oftentimes ‘hooking up’ right along the oceanfront, or amidst the beautiful Redwood Trees.
Anybody who has the privilege of inhabiting a traveling home knows exactly what I mean when I say “hooking up”… as our rigs are made to be plugged in for power, and the grey and black tanks are routed via a hose to the sewer. Some people are braver than I and actually “Boondock”… which means they aren’t hooking up to anything at all. I hope to one day travel to experience this way of life, but right now I am stuck in one spot with the luxury of connecting to power and sewer.
Several days ago, as dinner was cooking, we suddenly lost power. When you lose power, there are several steps to take to get it back going. First thing I always check is our GFI outlets… these are the plugs themselves that have two small buttons on them. When too much power is being pulled, it can often set one of those bad mamajama’s off thereby cutting off power to the plug. You may have experienced this using a blowdryer, or power tools… and it is a simple fix… you simply push the little button back in to resume power to that plug. However, it will happen again if you don’t assess what all is pulling power and unplug something else while you use your blowdryer/power tools.
After I have checked my outlets, and they are fine and dandy, I next go to my breaker box to see if a breaker has flipped. This is a simple fix as well… just flip the breaker switch back to its “on” position… being sure to check both the location and the main breaker.
I checked both of these things, and neither one was the culprit to our power loss. At this point I got nervous and turned my inverter on for my refrigerator. I had a feeling it was going to be a long night… without dinner at that.
The next thing I checked was the electrical box itself. This is the box that you have hooked your rig up to. It would have the option between a 30 & 50 amp switch. My rig runs on the 50 so I flipped it off and back on… still no power. Now, because my batteries were in working order, I had all the lighting I could want… which is great, but they couldn’t finish cooking my dinner nor run my air conditioners. Since it was late, I had no choice but to wait until the next day to call an RV repairman.
Luckily we are entering fall weather and there was no suffering due to the lack of air conditioning. It was a long night nonetheless courtesy of my close friend named “stress”, and I felt quite tattered by the time the repairman got here.
He listened closely to all I told him, and trusted I knew what I was talking about, skipping the usual act of going over everything I already tried. He went directly to his truck for another cord. He took mine off my rig, and screwed the new one in place, then plugged the other end into the electric box. Low and behold… we had power! After looking at my original plug, we found the cord to have an area that bulged out from the rest.
Problem Solved!!
So our power loss was due to the faulty/damaged cord you see above. I purchased a new one and we are back in business! Hopefully this post helps others experiencing power issues. Of course… if these simple suggestions do not work, consult a professional. Electricity can be deadly!
Happy simple living in your home on wheels… hope you love it the way we do!
