This post is about the GFCI electrical circuit in our 2019 Airstream Classic 30 RBT, which I have had many (zero) requests to write about.

Before reading further, let me make clear that I have no technical knowledge, nor am I an electrician.  If I was, we would have far more money than we do.  Before you go spelunking through your electrical wiring, get the counsel and expertise of a licensed electrician.

So, what is a GFCI circuit?  Excellent question.

GFCI stands for Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter, the equivalent of a chaperone at a middle school dance.  Get too close on a slow dance, and you’ll be separated before potentially lethal damage occurs.  The GFCI looks at the voltage going out on the “hot” wire and compares it to the voltage returning on the “neutral” wire.  If there is less voltage returning, the circuit assumes that voltage is leaking out somewhere to ground on that circuit (like through your pudgy little fingers as you stand in a puddle of water) and kills the circuit by tripping the outlet or circuit breaker – hopefully before you reach your expiration date.

There are fundamentally two ways in which functionality of GFCI can be provided – at a GFCI outlet, or through a GFCI circuit.  A GFCI outlet will be easily identified by a test and reset button on the face of the outlet.  These are good when you have one or two outlets on potentially a larger circuit that need this protection.  Kitchen or bathroom outlets are good examples, largely due to the presence of water, which is a wonderful conductor of electricity.

The GFCI circuit in our trailer may or may not act or be wired the same way as yours, but if you own an Airstream the chances are reasonably high that the concept will be similar in your trailer, if not the specifics.

GFCI circuits are used when you are attempting to provide GFCI functionality to multiple outlets.  The GFCI functionality in this case is accomplished at the circuit panel with a GFCI breaker, which essentially provides this protection on all of the outlets on that circuit.  As a result, the individual outlets may or may not have a test and reset button on them – on ours, they do not.

If a ground fault occurs anywhere on a GFCI circuit, all outlets on that circuit will be disabled until the problem is resolved and the circuit breaker is reset.

You will recognize a GFCI outlet in an Airstream because, well, they say GFCI on them.  In our Airstream, from the factory, the GFCI outlets are all daisy-chained back on a single circuit to a 15-amp GFCI circuit breaker at the electrical panel.

In our trailer, the GFCI circuit goes from the circuit breaker in the electrical panel (below the wardrobe) to:

• Outlet in kitchen above stove
• Outside outlet
• Outlet near entry door
• Outlets on either side of the couch
• Outlet in the bathroom

The outlet under the dinette (and the outlet for the TV) are on the inverter circuit and are not involved in the GFCI circuit.

Remember what I said about a ground fault on a circuit, that all outlets will be affected?  The funny thing about outlets is that sometimes they just go bad.  In this case, you can have a bad outlet on a GFCI circuit that won’t work, but all the other outlets on that same circuit still work.

In some ways, this simplifies troubleshooting.  If all the outlets on that circuit go out, you can reasonably assume that either there is a problem with something connected to the circuit that is causing a ground fault and the circuit to shut off (like it is intended to do), there is something at the panel to be corrected – either turning off and on the circuit breaker, potentially a circuit overload (running a hair dryer and an espresso machine simultaneously), replacing the circuit breaker, or fixing something in the wiring.

If it is just an outlet that is not working, this should be reasonably straight forward to diagnose.  Except for the last outlet in the series, if you were to remove any of these outlets from the wall you will find two pairs of white and black wires (and ground wires) coming into each outlet.  One pair of white and black wires is “hot”, meaning it is coming from the power source, and the other pair will go to the next outlet in the circuit.

Assuming you have shut off the circuit breaker before attempting any work, remove the outlet from the wall (unscrew and pull out), and disconnect the wires from the outlet.  You can easily verify that the outlet is the problem by turning the circuit breaker back on and putting a tester against a pair of white and black wires to verify that you have current to the outlet.  You will have two sets of wires so you will have to test each pair – one will be coming from the panel and showing voltage and the other will not show voltage and is going to the next outlet in the circuit.

Should the outlet be the problem, then replacing it should be straight forward.  Don’t be fooled.  First off, remember Airstreams have an aluminum outer skin, and (at least in ours) an aluminum inside skin (in the kitchen) right behind a silvery “wallpaper” for lack of better description.  But it is metal-like.  Second, Airstream uses what I would describe as non-standard outlets.  They are non-standard in the sense that the wiring comes into the top of the outlet, rather than the sides which is far more common.  This makes the Airstream outlets a bit narrower, since the wiring connections come in from the top rather than the side.

In our 30 Classic, Airstream cut the aluminum inside skin to specifically fit these narrower outlets.  Translation: the GFCI outlets you find at big box or small local hardware stores will not fit in this space, because the wires connect on the sides of the outlet, making these replacement outlets in effect wider than the one you are removing (like an 1/8^th inch).  Unless you have tin snips with you or mad skills I do not possess, the replacement outlet will not fit in the narrow crevice where the old outlet came out.

The other characteristic of these Airstream-installed outlets is they have white “wings” that hold the outlet in place against the inside wall and have a gray clip-on outlet “box” to prevent wires from accidentally coming into contact with other wires or metal in the walls.  Remember, your trailer gets jostled every time you take it on the road.

You can order some outlets like what Airstream uses to keep in your spares kit in case an outlet goes belly up (might never happen, could happen tomorrow), or prepare for some extra time, metal work, and cursing to be involved with the replacement of an outlet from a hardware store.  In our experience, Woodland Airstream is an excellent source for parts.

Oh, and carry a few extra faceplate screws, on the off chance that one of your screws will fall irretrievably in the air vent slots behind the oven.  Don’t ask me how I know this.

Safe travels my friends, and don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.  Don’t be me.