I wanted to take the time and update anyone still interested in the electrical issue I was trying to sort out last month. I have a break right now, our last official trip of the season is scheduled for October when my wife and I are heading to FL. I decided to dive into the ghost GFCI and Tank Heat problem as described previously in this thread. The information I am bringing to this thread is not to deflate the build quality of the Landmark, while true some of the discoveries I made were disappointing its my hope that other members can benefit from this information in the future. So here we go;
I started this whole process by dropping the complete underbelly on the Landmark. It was a perfect time to have a look at everything closely. I will detail that in another thread in the next day or so. By dropping the belly I was able to facilitate the troubleshooting for the first problem.
Regarding the Yeti "Tank Pads";
The 120 VAC tank heating pads are joined in 2 junction boxes along the exterior frame on the roadside of the coach. The rearmost junction box had some very ruff edges where the cut-out was done for the wires to go through. It was in this last box where I discovered that the wires had been chaffed through to bare copper. I removed the damage portion of Romex and then wrapped the wires in rubber where they pass through the frame.
TANK PAD HEAT FIXED!
Regarding the tripping GFCI;
1 of the 2 exterior receptacles are switched at the control panel as "Awning Receptacle". Any time this switch was selected on the GFCI would trip if ANY load was applied to the outside receptacle. I discovered the following;
a) Where the wiring for the GFCI circuit was pulled up through the floor of the bedroom/bathroom wall the exterior of the Romex was damaged and the neutral wire was bare to copper.
b) In the basement receptacle which had 3 wires (1 coming from the UDC plug, 1 going to the unswitched exterior plug, and 1 going to the basement to the island plugs). Obviously because there was 9 wires in this box I discovered that the bare ground wires were left too long and were touching the neutral wires.
c) In the breaker panel I discovered that 4 of the incoming wires were damaged when the exterior was stripped both the hot and neutral wires were cut and bare to copper. These wires were repaired.
d) Above the control panel (behind a hidden access panel) there is a junction box that controls the circuits that are switched from the control panel. I discovered there that 2 of the wires had been miswired. Plus 2 wire nuts were loose. I switched the neutral wires and secured all of the wire nuts.
TRIPPING GFCI FIXED!
Check out the photos!
So there you have it, obviously this took some time as I chose to troubleshoot these issues myself. Mostly because I wanted to spend some time organizing the underbelly (Post to follow). In all fairness to Heartland, I spoke to Elaine in technical support and she was excellent in providing me with wiring schematics for the Key Largo. I just had to do the ground work and find the faults. I would also like to thank everyone early on for their suggestions.
Thanks
Adam.
