Changing 15 AMP Circuit breaker

[nels1954]

I have a 2016 Greyhawk 29MV. When I have the coffee pot and a stand alone heater on at the same time it blows the 15 AMP breaker. I am considering changing out a 15 AMP circuit breaker for a 20 AMP circuit breaker. Any suggestions on if this would be a problem? Where are the breakers available.
thanks, Larry

[Grumpy]

It's only 14 guage wire so you could cause it to overheat.

[Witt74]

You cannot upgrade the breaker to a heaver one without upgrading to heaver wiring. As stated above, you could cause the wire to overheat, potential fire hazard. 14 ga wire is rated for 15 amps, to upgrade to a 20 amp breaker, you would need 12 ga wire.

[tnchuck100]

To be perfectly blunt: DON'T DO IT!

[norty1]

Trip the breaker and find another outlet for the heater that is on another breaker.

Anything else is not safe for you and yours.

[UpstateNY-31FS]

Unless you want to burn down your trailer, do not do it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[justman]

I think you've got your answer here...

Your stand alone heater is likely drawing 1500 watts when on high, or 750 watts on low. Doing some simple math (uh...right), 1500 watts at 120 volts is around 12.5 amps (Watts divided by Volts = Amps). When you plug in your coffee pot, it's drawing about 800 watts or so (varies, depending on manufacturer). So, 800 watts at 120 volts is around 6.6 amps. So...your combined amp draw is around 18 amps. Hence, your 15 amp breaker trips.

Of note, 14 gauge wire is the most common used on 15 amp circuits. Why??? Because it's rated for 15 amps. 12 gauge wire is rated for 20 amps. Can you guess which wire gauge they put in trailers? If you guessed "the cheapest they could and still meet minimum requirements, so that means 14 gauge", then you'd be correct!

Recommend you turn your heater on low while you make coffee and see how it goes.

[The Logans]

The only other (safe) option that you have would be to change the power center from a 30 amp to a 50 amp, which would also necessitate changing the outside power cord to 50 amp.

You could then add a dedicated circuit for the heater, and spread the load that way. Not cheap, but several here on the forums have done it. Now that I think of it, there may be some issues with the generator, also.

[RoyBraddy]

When we are camping at an electric site we use an extension cord plugged into the campground 20A service connection and then plug our oil-filled portable heater into that. This will be using a separate circuit breaker on the camp ground pedestal and not take away from the 30AMP Service connection for the trailer.

We have run into some camp ground that sort of frown on this but that was only one time.

Even when I am not running an extension cord from the pedestal into the trailer I am most often using the extension for any and all out 120VAC needs...

We camp alot off the power grid and our coffee maker in one of those GRIND and BREW Cuisinart Coffee makers that brews up fresh ground coffee beans. Model DBG600 I think the model number is...

This pours up the fresh ground coffee brew into a 10-cup thermos carafe which will keep the coffee hot all day long. The only time we are drawing power is when only for about 5-minutes doing the Grind and Brew. Then the coffee maker shuts completely OFF..

google image

This works great when we are off-road and using the generator each morning to re-charge our battery bank. We make up our coffee for the day during this same generator run time... If we run out of coffee it take a second to fire up the generator again and run it for five minutes total time to make a new batch of coffee...

Works great for us and we love the same taste fresh brewed bean coffee. To insure we get the same taste we always bring along our same bottled water we have picked to give us the taste we like...

Our coffee making routine...

Roy Ken

[nels1954]

Thanks for all the good information. I will not change out the breaker. This forum is always a great help.
thanks, Larry

[pconroy]

I find myself turning off the AC to run the microwave (when we're on 20A shore). It's a routine you eventually get used to.

And for coffee - I have two of these:
Melitta Pour Over

Fresh, hot coffee and *good* coffee in under 2 minutes.
Easy clean up.