POTENTIAL WIRING & FIRE HAZARD: 2005 FR Wildwood TT MAIN BREAKER OVERLOAD

[walk_the_walk]

We've owned our 2005 F.R. Wildwood 37 ft BHSS trailer for several years now, but only recently discovered a major electrical wiring hazard and life safety hazard. It has been there all along, as I am sure that F.R. installs the main electrical breaker panel and wires up the duplex outlet circuits.

So, I am writing to ALERT the rest of you and suggest you check your own wiring for this problem we found. We discovered this problem completely by accident about 3 weeks ago during a cold spell. We had two backup electrical space heaters (one oil-filled radiator style and another that looks like a fake fireplace). Both are 120 VAC and have 3 heat settings that use up to 1500 watts max.

With both space heaters running (one of the left hand side receptable, the other on a right hand side receptacle) we noticed that one and only one breaker kept tripping, which made it hard to keep the trailer warm (as I had not yet fixed the Suburban furnace, so I had no gas heat). In fact, the breaker got very hot to the touch, which I thought was a potential hazard.

We turned the heaters down to low, and moved them to different receptacles, ASSUMING THAT THE OUTLETS IN OUR 39 Foot Travel Trailer had at least TWO separate circuits for the 120VAC outlets. WRONG. The breaker kept tripping, so we had to just use one of the 1500 watt heaters and not use the bunk bed room at all. We all piled into the LR/DR/MBR area in the front to stay warm.

The next day, while investigating I uncovered a problem with both 120 VAC receptacle circuits doubled up on a single 15 amp breaker in my main breaker panel. I believe that this is not a dealer item, but an OEM issue, and one that warrants a recall for safety purposes (its an NEC violation IMHO and a FIRE HAZARD). The breaker got super hot when under stress.

So, I studied the manual on the panel and the breakers that are compatible. Most of the breakers in the panel from the FR factory are dual 15amp breakers, two circuits on each breaker. Since there were two spare slots left over, I ordered a new Siemens 15 Amp single circuit breaker. The new breaker arrived this week and I installed it this weekend.

In the process, I found that two 15 amp circuits, the ones that appear to feed ALL of the duplex receptacles on BOTH sides of our trailer, were intentionally ganged up on this one breaker. Someone actually soldered a pigtail to the tip of the 1st 15 amp outlet circuit, then used an orange wire nut to attached a 2nd circuit to that same half of the dual 15 amp breaker. All to save $3.25 on a 2nd circuit breaker that literally snaps in place!

To the best of my knowledge, this would violate NEC guidelines if two 15 amp circuits were ganged up on a single breaker in a home circuit breaker panel. Any home inspector would red flag that as a code violation and overload hazard.

Why this travel trailer would leave the factory like this I dont know; it's part of why we have nicknamed our trailer "Friday", as we think it was assembled on a Friday afternoon, based on some of the quality of the workmanship.

And, I like the trailer and Forest River, but I do feel obligated to notify others of what I see as a HUGE life safety issue. Breakers should not get hot like a fry pan and should not readily trip if you plug in a few devices. Two 15 amp outlet circuits should not be joined under one screw head of a single breaker AND FACTORY SOLDERED so they fit. The risk is just too great of a fire, under the same circumstances I just described: A cold night and two 1500 watt heaters plugged in and running.

After all, if the breaker failed to trip, if we were asleep and the main panel caught on fire, the whole trailer could go up in flames in minutes, killing everyone in the trailer.

So, please do yourself a favor: Inspect your main breaker panel. There are two philips head screws to remove the cover. Then make sure that there are not multiple circuits ganged up on a single breaker. If there are, it is easy to add breakers (my panel had two spare slots, and I could have added up to 4 15 amp circuits if needed.)

BTW, the OEM breaker panel supplied with my 2005 F.R. Wildwood trailer is a World Friendship WFCO WF-8955AN model.

Three pics are enclosed. Two show the two "ganged up" outlet circuits attached to one 15 Amp breaker. You can also see the orange wire nut with electrical tape that was used by someone to attach the 2nd circuit to the soldered-on jumper wire that was also used to attach two 15 amp circuits to one breaker switch.

I am stunned by the idiocy of this. To me, some FR worker bee in the electrical department wasted more than $4 in time and effort to solder and attach the extra jumper wire and they could have just popped in another breaker for less money, and then my family would not have been at risk of dying in a trailer fire due to an overload. Of course, my trailer is now a decade old, but I am sure there are probably thousands out there just like it, if this was common practice at the Forest River factory in mid 2005.

[youroo]

Hold on now,you bought a 2005 unit used in 2008 there is a Lot that could have been Modified in-between that time frame! Look at all the Mod's done by Members just on FRF! Have you ever seen a Amish Electrician! Just not sure it was F/R who did the job? Youroo!!

[Mr Havercamp]

Originally Posted by youroo

Hold on now,you bought a 2005 unit used in 2008 there is a Lot that could have been Modified in-between that time frame! Look at all the Mod's done by Members just on FRF! Have you ever seen a Amish Electrician! Just not sure it was F/R who did the job? Youroo!!

I did. Well sort of, not an electrician, a musician!

[gectisme]

Originally Posted by Mr Havercamp

I did. Well sort of, not an electrician, a musician!

You all are funny!

[Mr Havercamp]

Come to think of it an 8955 power center is a 30 amp service. No matter how many breakers or how the circuits are wired will not matter. You're never going to get 2 1500 watt electric heaters to operate at the same time. The converter itself is always going to pull a few amps, and the heaters will be a 26 to 30 amp + load depending on the heater. You're overloading your system no matter how its wired. Every time I have used 2 electric heaters in any of the 30 amp service trailers I have owned I had to run one off of a dedicated extension cord out to the pedestal.

[ChateauV10]

whoa---that is ugly! (not Weird Al, the wiring!)


Could this have been a creative act on the part of the assembly team, unknown to management, to get around not having another breaker available to install?

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by Mr Havercamp

Come to think of it an 8955 power center is a 30 amp service. No matter how many breakers or how the circuits are wired will not matter. You're never going to get 2 1500 watt electric heaters to operate at the same time. The converter itself is always going to pull a few amps, and the heaters will be a 26 to 30 amp + load depending on the heater. You're overloading your system no matter how its wired. Every time I have used 2 electric heaters in any of the 30 amp service trailers I have owned I had to run one off of a dedicated extension cord out to the pedestal.

X2


2015 Columbus 320RS
2008 2500HD Duramax
2015 nights camped "34"

[Oakman]

X3 on what Mr.Havercamp said. Your 2005 Wildwood is a 30 amp trailer. two 1500 watt space heaters ain't gonna cut it. You need to use your trailer's furnace and supplement it with one space heater.

[walk_the_walk]

Originally Posted by youroo

Hold on now,you bought a 2005 unit used in 2008 there is a Lot that could have been Modified in-between that time frame! Look at all the Mod's done by Members just on FRF! Have you ever seen a Amish Electrician! Just not sure it was F/R who did the job? Youroo!!

Yes, the folks that owned it used it 6 times. We bought it in early 2008. And unless the dealers are now soldering jumper wires instead of adding breakers, it looks like an FR issue.

I'm an engineer myself, and I never had reason to open the circuit breaker panel before now. the prior owners did not have the skill set to do it.

[walk_the_walk]

@ChateuaV10: I think you have nailed it with your comment. Creative factory floor 'engineering' due to a breaker stock shortage. Thanks for your comment. Spot on.

@Mr Havercamp: As iron sharpens iron, I appreciate your comment, but let me correct your thoughts on this. #1: the 8955 is a 55 AMP converter circuit breaker panel. And, even at full throttle, the small space heaters would draw 12-12.5 amps each. This is why when ALL of my outlets are ganged up on a single breaker, the breaker got so hot you could not touch it, and then TRIPPED. It tripped at 15 amp, so the heaters probably did not get to full heat before that happened.

Also, I did not say that I set the heaters to stage 3 or HIGH heat. They could have been at Low or set on Medium. In LOW, the heaters would use 500 watts or 4.2 Amps each, and at MEDIUM HEAT (likely setting), they would use 1000 watts each or 8.33 Amps per heater. THIS IS PROBABLY the setting in use at that time.


BREAKER PANEL SPECS ONLINE:

http://wfcoelectronics.com/product/wf-8955-55-amp/

[Mr Havercamp]

I'm not sure if its NEC or just a rule of thumb, but I know they put up to 7 duplex receptacles on a 15 amp circuit and 10 or 11 on a 20 amp.

[walk_the_walk]

Thanks, I DID fix the Suburban Furnace and it was a temporary measure, as I described. The propane furnace is working fine now.

But, that is beside the point. The point is that the wiring in the main breaker panel is a Royal mess, and I found two wires under one screw of a 15 amp circuit breaker that serves all the duplex outlets in a 37 foot bunkhouse travel trailer about the size of most Park models.

I am sure you dont think it's OK to solder jumper wires to add circuits to a 15 amp breaker right?

[walk_the_walk]

To make sure you are SEEING what I found, in two of the pics there are two black #14 THHN wires under one screw and a large orange wire nut with black electrical tape. The two black wires landed under the single screw head of a dual 15 amp Square D circuit breaker. The wire ends under that screw head are SOLDERED together (not twisted). One of the wires is a jumper wire and goes to the orange wire nut. The 2nd outlet circuit which feeds the dining room/slide-out side of our Wildwood, is attached via that orange wire nut wrapped in black electrical tape.

Nothing about that meets any electrical code. Houston, we had a problem.

Of course, it is now fixed by adding a new 15 amp breaker and cutting the soldered connection I found. That is not the issue. The issue is WHAT THE BLEEP is it doing there in the first place?

For those who understand the significance, I suggest you check your own breaker panel. It is worth the 3 minutes it takes to do this.

[caper]

My 2008 has all the outlets on one breaker. Plus when they wired the brakes the ran the wires to the drivers side then jumped to the other side. Drivers side got way more power and caused the brakes to wear faster. Dealer found the problem when I took the trailer in for a bearing that failed. The dealer installed a new wiring harness to allow all the brakes to receive the same amount of power.

[retiredcamper47]

Might not have had the skill set to do it but could have had the "neighborhood handyman" do the job for whatever the reason. I pride myself in knowing a little about everything, but I am not ashamed to call in a professional when I am not sure on a project. Just saying..................

Bob

[Mr Havercamp]

Originally Posted by walk_the_walk

@

#1: the 8955 is a 55 AMP converter circuit breaker panel. And, even at full throttle, the small space heaters would draw 12-12.5 amps each. This is why when ALL of my outlets are ganged up on a single breaker, the breaker got so hot you could not touch it, and then TRIPPED. It tripped at 15 amp, so the heaters probably did not get to full heat before that happened.


BREAKER PANEL SPECS ONLINE:

WF-8955 | wfcoelectronics.com

The 55 amp is the rating of the DC side of the converter. The 8955 is spec'd for a 30 amp main breaker on the AC side.

"The 8900 Series models provide AC and DC distribution with innovative features. They can accommodate a 30 Amp main AC circuit breaker"

I'm just going from a few years of experience trying to run 2 electric heaters in 30 amp trailers. I can also tell you that one or two breakers for all the AC in the trailer is very much common in the ones we owned.

None of the ones we have ever owned were pretty when it came to the wiring.

Originally Posted by caper

My 2008 has all the outlets on one breaker. Plus when they wired the brakes the ran the wires to the drivers side then jumped to the other side. Drivers side got way more power and caused the brakes to wear faster. Dealer found the problem when I took the trailer in for a bearing that failed. The dealer installed a new wiring harness to allow all the brakes to receive the same amount of power.

I have seen them run a smaller gauge wire through the axle tube to the opposite side. It does make the one side of the brakes wear out faster. I believe Dexter specs a 10 gauge minimum and it seldom is followed.

[ependydad]

Given all of the short cuts and crimp connectors and crappy whatnot used in my camper- I have the hardest time believing that someone on the factory line would actually take time to solder something.

[bob caldwell]

I added a dedicated 20 amp circuit from pedestal for that very purpose.....now can run 2 heaters

[litgrep]

I have always been able to run 2, 1500 watt heaters off my 30 amp supply at full heat. One comes off the plugs either in living room or bedroom. The other off the gfi circuit in bathroom or kitchen. When doing that one has to be shut off using microwave or wife's hair dryer. I find it unbelievable that an assembly line could do the mods you post. Think previous owner or dealer. No circuit breaker should get too hot to touch the switch.

[pmsherman]

Circuit breakers are designed to protect wires in case of a short. For continuous use, breakers should be loaded to a maximum of 80% of their rating. A 15A breaker is suitable for a 12A continuous load, or 1440W at 120V.

My 2011 Georgetown 327DS with 50A service is wired with almost all of the 120V outlets on a single 15A breaker. The bathroom and two outlets in the kitchen are on a separate breaker and are protected by the GFCI located in the bathroom. The outlet that services the microwave, buried in the back of a cabinet, is on its own breaker.

Using electric heaters, even with 50A service is a careful balancing act. When I need to use two of them, One gets plugged into the GFCI circuit while the other goes into a non-GFCI outlet. I've also checked to make sure the two circuits are on opposite sides of the power feed into the RV. (50A service = 2 separate 120V 50A circuits, with 220-240V across the two hot wires.)

Phil