When your RV electrical outlets go dead

Basic troubleshooting of RV electrical outlets and why they all go dead at once

Dear Readers,

I follow a number of different RV forums and have seen a flurry of similar questions from new RV owners. They can’t understand why all the power outlets went dead at the same time and what to do about it.

RV and Residential electrical power differences

Just because your RV has electrical outlets that look the same as the ones in your bricks and sticks house, doesn’t mean they’re hooked up the same way. And RVs are required to have GFCI protection on nearly ALL electrical outlets.

Residential Circuit Breakers

In your stationary house you’ll have a large service panel with dozens of circuit breakers. So there’s probably a different breaker for outlets in your kitchen, bathroom, each bedroom, living room, and outside porch. So when something goes wrong in your bathroom, it doesn’t affect the power anywhere else. Plus you’ll have multiple GFIC circuits with separate ones for the kitchen, bathroom and exterior outlets.

RV Circuit Breakers

However, in your RV there are a lot fewer circuit breakers. So only a single breaker generally powers ALL electrical outlets in your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom area and outside. So when something goes wrong in ANY of these outlets, it shuts down the power in ALL electrical outlets.

One GFCI for all outlets

In an RV there’s typically one GFCI outlet closest to your Power Center that’s Daisy-Chained to all the rest of the outlets in your RV’s bathroom, bedrooms, and all other outlets. So one GFCI outlet trip will shut down ALL outlets.

If you lose power in your RV 15-amp outlets, check the breaker first

So if you find that the power is out in all of your RV interior outlets, first check the power center to make the sure all the circuit breakers are ON. Remember, that you may have to cycle it OFF and ON to reset it. If that breaker trips it’s due to too much current being drawn, as if your daughter starts here hair dyer in the bathroom while your Instant-Pot is running in the kitchen.

Then check your GFCI outlet

If your power still isn’t on, then find the first GFCI outlet in that branch circuit and reset it. If your power comes back on, then something tripped the GFCI. But too much current won’t trip a GFIC outlet, it needs a current imbalance caused by fault current leakage, such as someone touching something metal in your RV while also touching a bare wire or appliance that has an internal failure causing a fault current to the chassis.

Why do GFCI’s trip?

That’s an entire article by itself which I’ll cover in depth later. But for now please DON’T replace any GFCI with a standard outlet. The GFCI device is there to save your life in case you make contact with an energized surface or appliance.

Let’s play safe out there…. Mike