All Of The Electrical Outlets in My 1997 Holiday Rambler Endeavor Are Dead

by Jim
(South Dakota)

Shorted an electrical cord in an outside outlet and now no outlets are working inside or outside. Where is fuse(s) to get power back to the outlets?

Thanks!

ANSWER: Greetings Jim thanks for submitting your question on our Ask An RV Question Page.

It sounds like you have blown a circuit breaker. Since you do not tell me if you are plugged into a house electrical circuit, a campground electrical circuit or if this happened while you were running your generator, I will have to give you different places to look. So just follow the steps below.

1. The first thing we are going to check are the RV circuit breakers. In one of your motorhome's exterior compartments is your electrical compartment. I cannot tell you exactly where yours is located, but if you start opening up the outside storage compartments of your RV you will run into it. You will know because you will see electrical wiring, a series of breakers, some fuses, etc. All of these electrical components are what control the 120 volt and 12 volt power in the house portion of your motorhome.

Now that you are in the electrical compartment; check for any tripped breakers. The breakers look like the ones you have in your house. Reset any tripped breakers and check your electric again, if everything is back to normal you are done. If not, move on to step 2.

2. If this happened while you were running off of the generator then you are going to have to check the circuit breakers on your generator as well as the ones mentioned in step 1. These breakers will be on the exterior of the generator itself. The locations of these breakers vary by make and model of generator. They are not always readily visible so take the time to inspect the generator closely. If you still have no power; move on to step 3.

3. You need to check all of your electrical outlets in your RV to see if you have any GFCI outlets. A GFCI Outlet looks just like a normal electrical outlet except that it has two buttons on it and acts like a circuit breaker when there is a ground fault in the electrical system in the RV. When this GFCI outlet trips it also shuts down other electrical outlets in the RV. Normally these GFCI outlets are located in the bathroom, or kitchen area of the RV, but they can also be located in

another part of the RV.

Look around the RV and see if any of these outlets are blown. The GFCI outlet has two buttons one is a test button and the other is the reset button. Make sure you press the reset button. If it blows again soon after you reset it I would suggest that you get a qualified RV Technician to take a look at the RVs 120 volt electrical system to find the problem. If this does not solve the problem move on to step 4.

4. Ok now that we have checked all of the circuit breakers in the RV it is now time to move on to check your external source of electric for a problem; in other words the circuit where your RV is plugged into at a campground or your house.

If you are plugged into electric at a campground, whether it is 50, 30 or 20/15 amp service, you may have tripped the circuit breaker on their service. Just go to where your RV is plugged into and look inside the box. For 50 and 30 Amp service, you should see a separate circuit breaker reset them if they are tripped. For the 20/15 amp service there may be a circuit breaker or a GFCI outlet as described earlier. Reset them as needed.

If you are plugged into your house electric through a normal 3 prong 15 Amp or if you are lucky 20 Amp outlets then you need to check the circuit breaker in the house to see if you tripped it. The problem may very well be that whatever you plugged in to the outside outlet of your motorhome did not trip the motorhomes's circuit breaker because it did not exceed the breakers rating for 50 or 30 Amps, but it did exceed the 15 or 20 amp rating of the house circuit breaker.

If after you have completed all of the steps above you still do not have 120 volt power to your RV you will need to take it in and have it looked at by a Qualified RV Technician as you could have damaged your RV's Converter or other 120 volt electrical components.

I hope that this information has helped you resolve your electrical problem.

Do you have any suggestions or comments on this topic? You can add them to this page by clicking on the "Click Here To Post Comments" link located near the bottom of this page.

Happy RVing

RVing Al

Comments for All Of The Electrical Outlets in My 1997 Holiday Rambler Endeavor Are Dead

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starstarstarstarstar 		Frame shocked me
by: Anonymous

I opened my outside bottom storage and got shocked. Unplugged 110 cord to RV and no shock what or where should I look.

Note From RVing Al: You should read How to Stop Your RV From Giving You an Electric Shock and it will give you the information you are looking for.
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starstarstarstarstar 		electric problems holiday rambler 1993
by: Anonymous

I don't know if this will help or not. I have problems with my 36' holiday rambler. I got myself grounded yesterday and when I touched it, it knocked me on my aaaa. unplugged everything i could find on 110 circuit and read with meter. all seemed normal. no longer shocked me.
plugged in fan. ran real slow, checked voltage.. dropped to abt 75 volts... stuck black lead to meter in ground, touched motorhome, showed 52.7 volts running thru chassis. talked to electrician, said had a bad connection (white hot wire) either where it came in trailer, or at box on pole...I checked both, as well as plug leads and it fixedd problem..]hope this helps someone.
ken... krwrite@yahoo.com
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starstarstarstarstar 		My 2 cents worth
by: Anonymous

Also check the circuit breakers on the inverter.

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