Door handle Shocking !!!!

I had set up the TM(as shown in the jpg.below) plugged the cord into a 110 volt outlet, turned the A/C and frig on and left the TM for about a hour. When I went to check on things, I did not have shoes,ect. on grabbing the the hande I got shocked. note: It was not a full 110 volt but enough to make me put shoes on (Did not shock when wearing shoes). My concern is during camping and The TM would be set up on concrete should I run a ground wire from the TM to a stake in the ground? I would hate for my child or wife to get shocked on our first camping trip.(That would be the end to our camping career) LOL

[Bill]

Do not allow this to continue! Something is miswired or a wire is making contact with something it shouldn't. First step is to go to the hardware store and get an outlet checker - one of those plug in thingies with three little lights. An example is shown below - they all look something like this, though not necessarily exactly. Only a couple bucks. Plug it into any outlet in the TM and check the lights - it will almost certainly show a problem. Now plug it into the 110 v outlet in the garage/carport. If it shows a problem there, then the outlet is miswired. If it doesn't show a problem, then plug the device into the end of the extension cord that you are using to feed the trailer. It also could be bad.

If you know enough about electricity to fix it yourself, that's fine. If not - and it doesn't sound like you do, and that's OK - find (hire) someone who does. This can be truly dangerous. As in lethal.

Bill

[Mr. Adventure]

Originally Posted by lester2720

I had set up the TM(as shown in the jpg.below) plugged the cord into a 110 volt outlet, turned the A/C and frig on and left the TM for about a hour. When I went to check on things, I did not have shoes,ect. on grabbing the the hande I got shocked. note: It was not a full 110 volt but enough to make me put shoes on (Did not shock when wearing shoes). My concern is during camping and The TM would be set up on concrete should I run a ground wire from the TM to a stake in the ground? I would hate for my child or wife to get shocked on our first camping trip.(That would be the end to our camping career) LOL

This is a serious and classic camping problem: 110vac appliances work just great with the electrical supply wires improperly reversed, and you might never know the risk without testing the outlet. When it's power supply is wired backwards, your trailer is hot where it should be grounded, and grounded where it should be hot. In this, our TrailManors' aluminum structure also adds to the problem by providing lots of great conductivity everywhere. And yes, you could get electrocuted by grabbing any trailer object you could get your hand around while standing on the ground (the electricity causes your muscles to contract and you can't let go).

I discovered a protection plan by accident once when I went to Lowe's to buy a nightlight for one of our RV's, so that we'd be able to see just a little better on the way to the john in the middle of the night. The nightlight was $4.50, but the circuit tester in the next shelf over was only $3, so I bought the circuit tester instead. We still have that same circuit tester plugged in, and I can see the 2 green lights every time we connect to shore power (they also tell me when we've lost the shore power connection because the fuse has blown).

Your picture looks like this might be at your home. So when fixing the outlet wiring, I might replace it with a ground fault protected outlet while I was at it, since I'm prone to having adventures.

Reversal of the hot and neutral shouldn't do this. Now if the GROUND wire was switched hot, it certainly would do that, but the polarity reversal most people talk about isn't hot and ground, it's hot and neutral.

Unlike your service entrance at home, neutral and ground are not bonded (or at least shouldn't be) in the camper. So even having them reversed *shouldn't* electricute you. If they are bonded in the camper somewhere, something is broke or something isn't following code properly. I'd still do the test as suggested - outlet testers are cheap, lives are not.

As for running a ground wire, that's not necessary - you already have one in the camper plug. That might be why you're only getting a "small" shock. I'll add that it is *hard* to set up a good ground, especially on a "temporary" basis. Out here, you need two or three 12 foot deep rods about 24 feet apart from each other, not just a couple of feet of some metal object in the ground. And I think the trailer's grounding system (third prong of the trailer's plug) should be sufficient, and not require driving multiple ground rods!

For what it is worth, as others mentioned, you might want to replace your home receptical with a GFI outlet (you can tell if you have one - and you almost certainly don't - because they'll have a "test" and "reset" button on them) - they are designed to protect you from exactly this sort of life threatening problem. If you have a GFI at home, even if you don't have one where you camp, you at least will find out you got a fault when you get home and plug in the TM - that minimizes the length of time you'll be at risk of the fault.

I will get a test kit and now I have a camper I WILL install a GFI recepticle where the TM will be plgged into my home. I'll let ya'll know what the problem was. I new that was not normal, but being a first owner of any camper wasn't sure.

The only stupid question is the one not asked
Thank you all for the input !!!!

[Mr. Adventure]

Originally Posted by grakin

Unlike your service entrance at home, neutral and ground are not bonded (or at least shouldn't be) in the camper. So even having them reversed *shouldn't* electricute you. If they are bonded in the camper somewhere, something is broke or something isn't following code properly. I'd still do the test as suggested - outlet testers are cheap, lives are not.

I hadn't thought about the ground not being bonded to the neutral in the trailer until you mentioned it. The last time I encountered this particular excitement was a long time ago at a campsite far away in a popup camper that has long since retired. The campground outlet must have been wired a lot like Lester's. I remember most the part about thinking I wouldn't like that site much in the rain with an aluminum skinned vehicle!

Here's how it's done: You're a campground handyman and you have old 2 wire electrical service in the ground going out to the sites. The new receptacles you're installing on the sites have 3 conductors, hot, neutral, and ground. You figure that since the neutral and ground are all just going to the same place back at the service panel, you jump from the neutral to the ground at the campsite receptacle. And, handyman that you are, you accidentally reverse the neutral and hot wires as you're hooking it up. You're sure you've done it right because everything seems to work and you're not blowing any fuses. Then, hopefully we check in with our circuit tester/night lights before somebody gets zapped.

Yeah, you need to get it resolved right away before you have a fatal accident...period...

I had the exact same problem you did and found the outlet I was running the TM from was bad (hot ground).

My first test was to hook the trailer up to the genset and see what happened.

DO NOT USE YOURSELF AS A TEST INSTRUMENT!!!! THAT IS A LETHAL COMBINATION. You can buy an a/c circuit test for less than $10 at Lowe's, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart (keep it in the TV glove box, it makes it easy to test if the site's shore power is even on). You can touch it anywhere on the trailer and if it flashes and whistles you still have the problem.

When I ran it on the genset, the trailer was fine. I then moved my shore power to another circuit and everything was fine. That indicated the other shore power outlet was either miswired or faulty.

I talked to a buddy of mine about this problem, he is thinking it's the wiring on my home. Eight years ago I brought a old wood frame home, had it moved to my property and added on, ect. A portion of the original house is the side I had my TM plugged into. The wiring is old and only has a hot and neutral NO ground. I had a exterior breaker panel box install to use on the additions I added on to the old house so I'm going to run a new wire and install a GFI recepticle(replacing the existing recepticle) to prevent this from happening again.

Have you checked the extension cord you are using to plug into shore power at home ? Would you get a similar reaction of the ground prong was broken, as many are, on the extension cord.

[Mr. Adventure]

Originally Posted by FightinIrish

Have you checked the extension cord you are using to plug into shore power at home ? Would you get a similar reaction of the ground prong was broken, as many are, on the extension cord.

Extension cord: Yes, I did this once, too. I replaced the plug end of an old 2 wire extension cord and used it for years. But once I used it for an RV, I discovered that it had hot and neutral reversed. Not a good thing!

If it was just the ground prong missing, things would still appear to work OK even if it's wired wrong. You'd think it would be always safer to use a 3 wire extension cord with a proper ground because it, in turn, grounds the TrailManor frame and skin. That's why this is such an insidious problem: The receptacle has the neutral and ground wired together AND reversed.