We have had a problem with the kitchen circuit being easily overloaded, and the breaker tripping off. The circuit is a 20 amp GFI protected breaker. The bathroom is included, as it should be, the kitchen counter, the plug located at the floor close to the sink, the dinette, and next to the couch on Anne-Marie’s side.
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.
Astoria Oregon, located at the mouth of the Columbia River, was the touring destination on Thursday. We had an interest in seeing the Rogue Public House, if only to pick up a souvenir for our friend Steve in Tucson.
The Rogue Public House is located out on a pier that must have been part of a fish cannery back in the early 1900s. The driveway was a narrow board covered pier about 200 yards long, and when we arrived at the parking area, we needed to jockey the van about to fit in one of the few parking slots, the customers must park on the streets and walk over when the place is busy. Lots of room inside and a double row of beer taps, lots of flavors to choose from. This place can handle a couple of hundred customers. Andrew and I gave the restaurant a quick tour while I was choosing a flavor to share with friends in Tucson, then we moved on.
A view of the bridge over the top of some of the fishing fleet, taken from the pier at the Rogue Public House.
Lewis and Clark have traveled many of the places that we traveled through, and they were here on the coast of Oregon. This historical marker was on Hwy 101, as was this cannon. The cannon replica was placed in 1952, and it represents the cannon found on the beach that gave the town Cannon Beach its name.
It’s been many years since I have been through the Tillamook Cheese Factory, perhaps 45? I remember walking on the floor where the large long vats held the curds, and watching the workers stir and rake the forming cheese, but now visitors are not allowed close to where the cheese is handled.
Yesterday Anne-Marie and I drove a few miles south down the coast, to tour the Cheese Factory, and meet up with Andrew and Amanda our Son and Daughter-in-law. The first thing that we saw inside of their visitor center was this shortened VW Van, and it was setup for kids to slide in and have their picture taken.
The front of the factory is where they have a boat on display, and a worker is sanding it down to repaint. It’s a rebuilt replica of the first boat used to transport goods from Tillamook to Portland Oregon. The original was built and used in the mid 1800s, and wrecked in 1860.
The observation area is now upstairs and through windows, and this area can handle hundreds of visitors at a time. Today, there were 40 lb. blocks of cheese being cut down to 2 lb. loafs. The upper line of cheese blocks was yellow cheddar when we arrived, and by the time I got to taking pictures they had changed to white cheese on all three lines. There are a lot of people in this room, and only two packing lines were working.
This wide picture shows the other side of the operation, where the milk is turned and churned into cheese. This side of the plant only had a few workers. The inside of the plant is real industrial looking.
After we tired of watching the cheese being made and packaged, we went back downstairs to the gift shop. The wide picture shows only a small part of the Tillamook branded cheese and milk products that were displayed.
As Anne-Marie was gathering up an armful of flavored cheeses, I was choosing a T-shirt and some samples of fudge.
Our second stop of the day, the Blue Heron French Cheese Company. I was looking for another cheese factory to tour, but the tourist/gift shop business grew so large that the cheese making was moved to another site. The building is the size of a large barn and is is jam packed with Oregon and Northwest products. There are samples of all of their cheeses, and nearly every other food product that they sell. Anne-Marie at the wine tasting counter having a taste, we both had 5 samples of their offerings, and the challenge was choosing which ones to taste. Anne-Marie choose the wines to buy, and I choose the cheese to take home.
This plate reminded me of my cousins, Patty, Ronae and Sheryl Ann.
Yesterday was a day for touring. We drove to Astoria, and after a lunch, we found the Columbia River Maritime Museum located right on the water.
The building looked to advertise its gift shop primarily, but it was a temporary banner. There where freighter ships at anchor in the river, and one can be seen immediately to the left of glass windows. The picture of the huge anchor being held by an old man, has a large chain attached. I could only move one link, not lift it.
One of the first displays was this three cylinder steam engine, lots of moving parts.
The first big room had several boats on display. These were mostly boats that were used on the river, and crossed the bar to fish in the ocean, except for the Coast Guard boat used for rescue of the fishermen.
This display is a rescue boat tipped up on end, showing the extreme storm conditions that the Coast Guard rescue crews endure.
One room was dedicated to the military history of the Columbia River, and this is a 22ft long torpedo that was the type used on WWII Subs.
There were many scale models of paddle wheelers and sail boats that saw use on the Columbia River.
The early history of the river was primarily for the trade routes and the local history of the fisheries industries, and not so much of its military use.
This diving suit was dated pre-1900, and the signs tell of how risky this job was. The canoe was made by burning and scraping the log and cutting away everything that didn’t look like it needed to be a canoe, the sign dates it in the late 1800s.
During our pass through the gift shop, I found a Astoria T-shirt just my size.
Our first full day of visiting Andrew and Amanda, found us having a early dinner at the Tsunami Bar and Grill, right on the water of Nehalem Bay. Wheeler is a small town on the bay, with a business area about three blocks long, and is located south of Nehalem. The whole town looks out over the waters of Nehalem Bay, and the busy docks with small open boats of salmon fishermen or folks with crab pots and floats in their boats. The restaurant had outdoor seating on the deck overlooking the docks and the water of the bay, but being dressed a little light we choose the indoor seating next to a window for nearly the same experience. We were able to see the gulls come and go on the docks, and resting on the piers, during this time a Cormorant came coasting in on his huge wingspan and landed on the dock to rest for a few minutes, and several minutes later a Blue Heron landed on the dock and rested a bit. All of the bird activities were happening with diners at their tables on the deck. When our food arrived, the hamburger that I has ordered was a bit larger and taller then I had anticipated. The burger had a meat patty that was just under 1 inches thick with blue cheese crumbles resting on top of the thick slices of bacon, and the other side had a big pile of lettuce, tomato and onions. When assembled the burger pile was about as tall as a coffee cup, even after I had mashed it down,I held it up and took a bite. This is just too big to eat by hand, I just knew that if I kept biting at the edges, I would eventually get hamburger on my nose and forehead, and maybe even on the sides of my face to my ears. I resorted to cutting the whole thing into small pieces and eating it with a fork.
The Tucson RV Park Wi-Fi Dilemma has Been Resolved
Monday early during our travel day, Bob from Tucson called me to ask about the Wi-Fi system of the RV Park. Bob is installing new internet service to the RV Park, as the internet service provided by the phone company is going away. Bob had installed a new internet route for the park and it uses antennas to reach their office in downtown Tucson, and he was wanting to switch the park service over today. I described the system, best as I could remember, and Bob felt he had a plan to transition away from the DSL service. I called Bob later in the day, to check on the progress, and he was long ago done and on to another project. The RV Parks internet service remains continuous and when we arrive, I only have some minor tinkering to do.
Yesterday Anne-Marie and I hooked the van to the trailer, and headed west and south. We left the hazy air of central Washington, and didn’t escape the wildfire smoke until we reached Portland Oregon. We made a stop at Camping World in Portland to pick up some supplies for the trailer, and have a quick lunch, before getting back on the road. Our easy driving pace got us to Nehalem with the sun still in the air, but as soon as we got setup, some clouds were starting to move in, and today it is a bit of a grey day.
This wide picture is taken from a viewpoint in the Oswald West State Park, the Pacific Ocean and Nehalem Bay State Park in the distance.
We are parked on the edge of Nehalem Bay at the Brighton Marina.
Anne-Marie and I got to the RV Park with the vans fuel gauge on empty. We looked for a gas station on the way to visit Andrew in Manzanita, and the only gas station for a 35 mile stretch of the coast highway was a mile away from Manzanita, had we chose the other direction we could have driven to Tillamook before finding fuel.
Anne-Marie and I have pulled the trailer over 9000 miles this summer, and we have had a few things wear out or break this year. Mid-state Michigan when I was driving, pulling onto the freeway, a flattened traffic cone was in our lane, another vehicle had hit it and knocked it into the travel lane. I straddled the flattened cone with the van,thinking that we could pass safely over the top of it, but it was just too tall, and it tumbled from the front bumper to the back bumper of the van. I looked in the mirror, and saw it jump off to the side, at the back of the trailer. We continued our travels another hour without checking for damage. When we were checking in at the RV Park in Mackinaw Michigan, a worker there alerted us to a noise in the back of our trailer. I had to remove the fuse holder to turn the power off to the controls. Both switches were broken, and the fuse holder was no longer serviceable. I ordered parts from Kelly at Woodland Travel, and she shipped them to our Hood River Oregon address.
We got our mail forwarded to us here in Yakima, and yesterday the last day before traveling again, I started the switch replacement. The fuse holder has been removed, and the picture shows that the left switch is up, and the right one is broke off. I had to buy a solder gun for the project, and I had all other tools that were necessary.
This is the finished project, and both stabilizers work again. This was another lay on the ground project, and when I was scooting under the trailer, I was pushing with my feet and I caused a water leak on the hose. The water leak caused the overalls that I was laying on to be a little uncomfortable, and I reached the point that I had to get out from under trailer and tighten the water fitting, before the overalls soaked the water up to my shorts.
Today is a travel day, we are moving the trailer to Nehalem Oregon, and we plan to be there for this week visiting our oldest son Andrew and his wife Amanda.
