Camper Wiring Help

**smuesse** · #1 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 06:50 AM

Just wondering if any one knows anything about camper wiring, i thought they were the same as a house on the AC side. We just brought this one home and i was testing everything to make sure it works. I turned on the hot water heater that is gas/electric, with the on off light switch that is in the kitchen. It works fine so sunday night i just turned off the switch so i wouldnt be wasting power. Well i go out last night and the water is still very hot. I hooked up a voltage meter and found still getting like 90 volts to it with the switch off. I checked the switch and it is working. But i did notice that if i test from the white wire to my copper common i still had 120 volts. By chance would any one be able to advise me on this or know where i might could get a wiring diagram for a 1997 terry. Thanks.

**thbd77** · #2 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 06:53 AM

Dont know. did you check the terry website. good luck

**fordmugg** · #3 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 06:59 AM

is the trailer plugged in during all this or just running off the batteries ........the water heater on mine is just on or off but like my fridge it has gas and auto where if there is no power to it it will run off of the gas and when you turn the generator on or plug into a power source it will switch over to electric

**smuesse** · #4 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 07:04 AM

I have the gas knob turned off on the the water heater. Looks like i would have to light this one if i wanted to use gas. Yes the camper is pluged in. I tried it unpluged to see if the battery was feeding back through the inverter but its not. Un-pluged i am getting no voltage like it supposed to. I was looking at the wire coming in to the breaker box and it has a bare copper wire, Green wire, white wire and a black wire. I do not see what the green wire does.

**fordmugg** · #5 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 07:11 AM

does the trailer have a generator in it ?.......

**smuesse** · #6 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 07:19 AM

No generator.

dagnabit9 · #7 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 07:38 AM

OK...saw this on the other thread, you go into greater detail here - so here goes...

Your water heater should (depending on the model) use gas to stay hot if the gas valve is open, but when it's closed it'll go over to AC if it's plugged in - kinda like the refrigerator when it's on auto. If the gas is not on or the AC is not plugged in, the water will then cool off. Some RVers buy a good sized generator to use when they're "boondocking' it, in order to run lights and such, and to recharge the batteries.

BTW, running your fridge and water heater on gas is the most efficient and the fridge will actually keep things in there colder on gas than on AC.

Hopefully, this helps...

**smuesse** · #8 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 08:03 AM

Yeah that helps. I was just trying to figure out why there is always power going to the water heater even if the switch in the kitchen was switched off.

**Dave** · #9 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 08:10 AM

If the gas is off and your switch is wired correctly it should not be getting power. That leads me to believe the switch is wired wrong. or the water heater is getting power somewhere else

**smuesse** · #10 (**permalink**) 02-17-2009, 08:26 AM

I think i need to open up the back of my inverter box and breaker box to see what is going on with the wiring.

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