I added a instant hot water tank and faucet at the sink, before we started full time living in the trailer, and it draws 700 watts when it cycles on to keep the water hot. We have two small space heaters in use, the bathroom heater draws 750 or 500 watts when on high or low, and the front room heater uses 1500 or 750 watts when on high or low.
Anne-Marie uses the Rice cooker every morning to make oatmeal, and it uses up to 750 watts.
The lesser used appliances are the fry pan at 1200 watts, crock pot 215 watts, and the electric pressure cooker at up to 1000 watts depending on cooking mode.
The coffee pot that we bought last winter uses 1025 watts, and this is the appliance that is used as often as the rice cooker and the combined load taxes the circuit breaker to the tripping point.
Last winter in Tucson, we had to watch what was in use or what stage an appliance was in, or else the breaker would trip. This summer we didn’t use the heat, but we ran the air conditioner 24/7 for almost 2 months, and depending on if we were on 30 amp RV Park service, the electric fry pan would trip the outside 30 amp breaker, but the coffee maker worked fine. Now fall is here and we have the bathroom heater on low, and the front room heater on low or high, Anne-Marie cooks oatmeal in the rice cooker every morning, and the coffee maker is put through a cycle every morning, and the circuit breaker trips.
The tripping of the breaker had become so common but erratic with what appliances were in use at the time, and it became a challenge to sort out what was on and what needed to be turned on, I needed another tool to help sort it out.
I already had two digital VOM meters, but neither could measure AMPs, and the little Kill-A-Watt meter only worked on appliances plugged directly into it. While in Astoria I purchased another meter, and this one can measure AMPs in the breaker box. The new meter is the orange Klein Tools VOM with a AMP reading clamp.
While we were in Nehalem, the kitchen circuit tripped twice with the coffee maker helping, and once without. The circuit breaker was getting weaker, and I opened the breaker box cover, just to look, and I saw that the breaker had been generating enough heat to char and dry out the insulation on the black wire clamped to it. This black wire is the hot lead in the yellow Romex cable feeding the kitchen circuit outlets, the clamp is over the wire. This picture is taken after I replaced the 20 amp GFI breaker. When we get into Hood River Oregon, I will replace this section of this wire.
When I was sorting out what was happening electrically on this circuit, I found that we were hitting it with 22 amps of current draw routinely and sometimes even more. How the breaker trips, is it gets hot after the current level is exceeded, and the circuit breaker trips to open. In Nehalem, when looking at the breaker, I could feel the heat radiating off of it. Here in Portland, we visited a Home Depot, and I bought a replacement GFI breaker, a short heavy duty extension cord (2ft), and 25ft of 12/2 Romex cable. The new GFI breaker is in service, and the old one looked like a mini blow torch had smoked the wire terminal, and was immediately trashed.
The front room heater has been moved off of the kitchen circuit and onto the 12v converter circuit by using the short heavy duty extension cord and rerouting the heater power cable, and the most that I can get that circuit up to is 13 amps of draw. The circuit breakers should not exceed a continuous load of 80% of their rated value, and the power cabling in our trailer is all 12awg that is rated for 20 amps and the circuit breakers are 20 amp rated and this equals 16 amps as the number to keep under on all our circuits.
These two pictures show the induction AMP meter attached to the feed cables to show how the load is measured on each leg, and to balance the load between these two, the circuits would need to be shifted from one feed to the other.
When we get to Hood River, I will take a day or two to run a power cable from the bathroom hot water heater, that is all by its self on its own circuit, to the kitchen sink area, to feed the instant hot water heater, and these two draw 10 amps and 6 amps of current. These two should be able to run intermittently and together on the 20 amp circuit. The kitchen circuit should be able to safely handle any of the remaining appliances without exceeding the breaker rating.
After I complete this last chore of moving the instant hot water heater to the other circuit, the power draw should be balanced in the trailer, and no circuit should be able to be overloaded with normal use anymore. I believe that this meter has saved us from a very hazardous situation and I should have bought one years ago.
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