RV Electricity for Beginners

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Today we're talking about RV electricity for absolute beginners. I don't care if the last time you thought about an electron was in your high school physics class a couple decades ago. By the end of this video, you will understand RV electricity better than 99% of RV owners out there. And this information is super helpful because it can help you diagnose problems in your RV all by yourself, help you feel more independent and in charge when you go out RVing, and save you a crap ton of time and money in your RV because you're not calling techs all the time for simple electrical problems.

[00:00:35]If you don't know me, hi, hello. My name is Emily. I'm a certified RV repair tech and this is RV repairwoman. So, right up off the top, the number one thing you need to understand about electricity when it comes to RVs is that we have two types of electricity going through your rig. AC and DC. DC power comes from your batteries. And it powers things like your lights, your slides, your leveling jacks. All of your propane appliances have circuit boards in them that run off of DC power. And the one that seems to really trip people up a lot are the fart fans in your bathroom. Those are also DC appliances. AC appliances include things like your air conditioner. Any appliance that has an electric setting, like if your water heater has an electric setting or your fridge has an electric setting, all of your outlets are powered by AC power and your microwave is actually plugged into an outlet hiding behind the microwave. So, it is also AC power. But what the heck does AC or DC mean? And why do we have two types of electricity in our RV? Why are we making things so complicated? Well, it all comes down to how the electrons are moving around the wires going through your RV. All electricity just comes down to the movement of electrons. Okay? As soon as those electrons start boogying it up, you have power in some form or fashion moving through your RV. When it comes to DC power, those electrons are moving in one big circle, starting at the battery, probably going through some sort of surge protection, heading out to your appliance, and then back to the battery. Bob the electron is going on one big circular journey. Woohoo. In AC power, on the other hand, instead of actually moving along the wire all the way from start to finish, the electrons are actually shimmying in place really fast. We still need to have one continuous path that connects the source of the electricity all the way to the appliance and back again. So that way, each electron can be shimming in place, bumping into the one next to it, causing it to shimmy. And that chain reaction can happen all the way from the source of the electricity all the way to the appliance and back again. This is why DC circuits and AC circuits can look very similar. They both need to have one continuous circular pathway for the electrons. But what's actually happening inside of the wires and what those electrons are doing is very different.

[00:03:09]Okay, so that explains the difference between DC and AC. But why do we need both of these types of electron movement happening in our RV? Right now, top level because of the characteristics of the way that these electrons move, DC power can be stored, AC power cannot.

[00:03:31]But AC power, at least when it comes to RVs, is beefier and stronger than DC power. So, you can see that each type of electricity has its pros and cons. So, we use DC electricity whenever we're powering something that we would still want working in the RV when we're boondocking or when we're not plugged into shore power. Remember, DC power is powering things like our lights, our slides, our leveling jacks, all of our propane appliances, and the fart fans in our bathroom. All of these are basically the essentials that you would need in order to operate the RV. We use AC power on the other hand to come in and power our more beefier or our more power intensive appliances like our air conditioner. It takes a lot of power to cool things down. So, we're going to need to bring in that beefier AC power in order to run our air conditioner. AC power usually comes from plugging into shore power, but we'll go into other sources in just a minute. So, right now, our big takeaway is that in your RV there are two types of electricity, DC and AC. We use DC power because it can be easily stored and taken with us. And we use AC power when we need to power beefier appliances. Okay. But let's say that you really wanted to power some of those more power inensive appliances even when you're not plugged into shore power. Let's say you want to go boondocking out in the woods, but you still really want to be able to plug your laptop into your outlets. A generator takes in gas and uses that to produce AC power. And an inverter actually takes the DC power from your batteries and transforms it into the beefier AC power in order to run your more power intensive appliances. In order for it to make sense for you to have an inverter in your RV, you usually need to have a pretty big battery bank because it's going to take quite a lot of DC power to transform into enough AC power to power those power intensive appliances. This is why most RVs out there don't have an inverter. It's usually considered a pretty expensive upgrade. If you don't know if you have an inverter, I can pretty much guarantee you don't have one. It's sort of like having a pool in a house when you went to buy the RV. If you had an inverter, whoever sold you the RV would have mentioned it a lot. It's considered a big upgrade. But that's how you can get AC power even when you're boondocking.

[00:06:04]You either need to have a generator or a large battery bank with an inverter.

[00:06:09]Otherwise, when you go boondocking, your fridge will only work on propane, your water heater will only work on propane.

[00:06:17]None of your outlets will work, and your air conditioner will not turn on. I'm reiterating this several times because I cannot tell you how many calls I've gotten as a tech where someone has gone out boondocking or even dry docking outside someone's house and not realized that parts of their RV will not work.

[00:06:39]While we're talking about inverters, let's talk about its sister component, a converter. While most RVs do not have an inverter, pretty much every RV out there has a converter or converter. So remember, an inverter took DC electricity and transformed it into AC electricity. A converter or converter transforms AC electricity into DC electricity.

[00:07:08]This is what allows us to charge up the batteries when you're plugged into shore power. Otherwise, if we didn't have a converter, the DC appliances in our RV would drain the battery and we wouldn't have a way to top that battery back up.

[00:07:23]Just think of your converter as like a fancy battery charger. You plug your phone in to charge at night, so the battery tops back up. Well, the converter is doing that for the batteries in your RV every time you plug into shore power. If you do have an inverter, there's a very good chance that it might be an inverter charger, which just means that your inverter can go both ways. Ooh, it can transform AC power into DC and it can transform DC power into AC. But that is the only instance where an RV would not have a converter is if they have a very fancy inverter that can do both. Other than that one scenario, every RV out there has a converter cuz you need some way to charge up your batteries. I'm reiterating this a couple times because it can really help with troubleshooting.

[00:08:12]If you've been plugged into shore power for a long time and your battery has died, that's a really good indicator that your converter is broken or having problems in some way. Because if you're plugged into shore power, that battery should be getting charged up and shouldn't have died. So, you're probably going to have to go replace your battery. But if you don't solve the converter problem, that new battery that you've purchased is probably going to die again because there's nothing behind it charging it back up. I'm reiterating this a couple times cuz I can't tell you how many calls I've gotten from people who've replaced their batteries several times without solving the underlying problem. Okay, so now that you know that you have two types of electricity in your RV, we can now talk about the different ways that your RV protects your appliances from these different types of electricity. This is really important and cool because this area in your RV is the very first place that you should check if anything electrical stops working in your RV. So basically for every appliance in your RV, I don't care if it's your fridge, your water heater, your air conditioner, we put some type of safety between the source of the power and that appliance. And the idea is that that safety will go off or break before the appliance does if there's a big power surge. If too much power goes through a wire that wasn't rated for that amount of power, that wire can melt or worst case scenario, catch fire. And if this type of thing happens inside some of the very delicate components inside your fridge, for instance, that's how we can break parts of your fridge. So that's where this panel comes in. The idea is that these cheap parts inside of this panel will either trip or break before something expensive inside your appliance does.

[00:10:16]So, this is your fuse and breaker panel.

[00:10:19]There is one of these inside your RV somewhere. When it comes to RVs, the almost nothing is 100%. You can find an RV out there that breaks the rules, but 99.9999% of RVs out there have a fuse and breaker panel somewhere in the RV for safety.

[00:10:38]When you're looking at your fuse and breaker panel, one side should have your breakers and the other side should have your fuses. Your breakers help protect the AC appliances in your RV and your fuses help protect the DC appliances in your RV. So, the idea is if too much AC power came through one of these breakers, it would trip before something melted or broke inside the AC appliance.

[00:11:07]So, if any of your AC appliances stop working, the very first place that you should check are your breakers and make sure none of them have tripped. If one has tripped, all you need to do is come over and flip it back into the on position. Sometimes these breakers can be a little finicky. If it doesn't want to immediately pop back into the on position, try pushing it more off and then back on. This is the good old turn it off and turn it back on again trick.

[00:11:37]We've all done it and it's the go-to thing to do when it comes to breakers.

[00:11:41]If when you flip that breaker to the on position, it immediately flips back off or within short order, like the next day it flips again, that's when it's probably time to call a tech and figure out the underlying cause for why that breaker tripped. If you go and you flip that breaker and then you never have a problem again for months and months and months, you're probably fine and continue living your best life in your RV worry-f free. Sometimes these breakers trip because you had a big power surge come through and that just happened once and now that that power surge is over, we can comfortably trip the breaker back on and we're good to go. Sometimes breakers just have a moment and they trip on their own. and sometimes they trip because you've turned too many things on in the RV at the same time. So, especially in a smaller RV, all of your outlets are most likely on one breaker, which means if you have your hair dryer and your computer and your air fryer all plugged in and going at the same time, there's a good chance you're going to trip a breaker. That's not a big deal. Just turn off one of the things that are plugged into your outlets, put the breaker back in the on position, and if it stays on, you can continue on your merry way. This is very different than in a house where often like the outlets in your bedroom are probably on a different breaker than the outlets in your living room. So, you could have your air fryer going in the kitchen and your hair dryer going on in the bathroom and be totally fine. Here in an RV, all of those outlets are most likely on the same breaker. So, you do have to be a little more delicate about how many things you have going on in your RV at the same time. But those are your breakers, what they do, why they trip, how to untrip them, and at what point you should call a tech about your breakers. From there, let's move on to your fuses. Your fuses are doing the same job that your breakers are, but for the DC side of your RV. Your fuse just has two paddles, and they're connected by a very tiny filament. And each type of fuse is rated for a different amount of power to go through. So if you look at the top of the fuse, it usually has a number that's telling you how many amps that fuse is rated for. Now the whole concept of volts and amps and watts are for a different video, but just know the bigger the number on the fuse, the more power that that fuse is rated for. This is a 20 amp fuse. And the whole idea is that if more than 20 amps went through this fuse, that that little filament in the side would break before any parts of my expensive DC appliances broke. Very cool. The biggest difference between a fuse and a breaker is that a breaker can be tripped and unttripped multiple times. A fuse once it breaks has to be replaced. So, if any of the DC appliances in your RV stop working, your fuse panel is the first place that I want you to check. Many newer fuse panels have a red LED for each individual fuse. And the idea is that when that fuse pops, the red LED comes on, telling you that that fuse is broken. Now, we cannot trust that red LED 100% of the time. I have seen fuses pop and the red LED not come on, but that can be a really great shortcut if you don't have those red LEDs or you just want to be able to check for yourself. You literally can just come in and take each fuse out one at a time, take a look, make sure that the filament is still intact, and then put the fuse back. If you have a multimeter, you can test these fuses for continuity if that's something that makes sense to you and you understand. If that just went over your head, don't worry. The eye test will get you like 90% of the time.

[00:15:40]If you find a bad fuse, all you're going to do is take it to your local AutoZone or O'Reilly's or any car part store and you can find replacements there. You just want to make sure that you replace the fuse with one that's the same size and the same rating. The great part is even if you struggle to read the tiny font on the top, they're all colorcoded.

[00:16:03]So, for the most part, all of the yellow fuses out there are 20 amps. So, if this fuse was bad, I just go to an AutoZone, find one that was the same size and was yellow, and I can pop it back in and get whatever's not working in my RV working again. Similar to the breakers. If when you pop that news fuse in, it immediately pops again or we'll say pops within the next like day or so, then it's probably time to call a tech and figure out the underlying reason for why that fuse popped. But if you replace that fuse and you never have a problem again for months and months and months, then you're fine. You solved that problem all by yourself. You were your own personal attack and you did a great job. Um, these fuses are considered consumable parts. that little filament inside every time you use your RV is heating up and cooling down a little bit. And as it heats up and cools down and heats up and cools down, sometimes those fuses just wear out and break even if nothing has gone wrong in the RV.

[00:17:02]It's totally fine. That's part of their life cycle and you can confidently replace them. They're a couple cents a piece. Just every time I talk about replacing fuses on the internet, people get in an uproar that we haven't solved the underlying problem. And I'm just saying right now, sometimes fuses just pop. But now that you know about the main safety mechanisms we have in our RV for the AC and DC side of your RV, let me show you a bonus safety mechanism that could also save you a bunch of money. So, I'm coming to you now from the bathroom in my RV to talk about something called a GFCI or ground fault circuit interrupter. This is another safety for the AC side of your RV. GFCIs are something we actually also have in residential homes. In a residential home, you would find these guys on any outlet that might be near a source of water, like my sink down here. The whole idea is that if water got into this circuit, it could short it and uh cause a fire. Crazy that water can cause fire, but that's the joys of electricity. So, we put in that ground fault circuit interrupter on any outlet that might be near water and that ground fault circuit interrupter or GFCI will shut off that outlet as soon as it detects a short of any kind. The idea being if water got in there, it would immediately shut off and prevent uh a fire from occurring. Yay, we love that. In a residential home, you would find these all over your house.

[00:18:33]They're probably in your kitchen and in your bathroom and any outlets you have outside. Here in an RV, we actually take all of those outlets and we wire them together with this outlet. So, the outlet here in your bathroom, the outlet in your kitchen, all of your outlets inside, and the outlet that your fridge is plugged into are all wired in tandem with this outlet and this outlet's ground fault circuit interrupter. I know that seemed like a lot of information, but the main takeaway here is that if any of those outlets stop working, this is the first thing that you should check. All you're going to do is look at the ground fault circuit interrupter. It should have two buttons on it. One should say test and one should say reset. If you think the outlet stopped working, just hit that reset button and see if it solves your problem. Now, similar to the breakers and the fuses, if when you pop that reset, it immediately solves your problem and you don't have a problem again for months and months and months, you might have just had a small power surge come through, or honestly, RVs are very finicky. If when you hit that reset, it immediately pops again or pops within like the next day or so, then we want to start looking for underlying causes. The first question you should ask yourself before you call a tech is just, do I have too many things plugged in at the same time? If you have your fridge running on electric and you have a hair dryer going and your microwave and a pluggedin air fryer, there's a good chance you're popping that guy all the time. So, try unplugging some things or try moving your fridge from electric to gas and see if that solves your problem and keeps this thing from tripping all of the time. If you're like, Emily, I don't have a lot of things plugged in and this thing still keeps tripping, that's when you should call a tech and let them help you find the underlying cause. Because if that guy is tripping all the time, that is a little scary.

[00:20:36]That does mean you probably have a short somewhere and we want to stop that short from happening. But if you have a bunch of things running and this guy pops, you should feel very comfortable unplugging the air fryer or the hair dryer, hitting reset, and seeing if that solves your problem. This, my friends, is how you save a bunch of time and money in your RV feeling confident that you can solve some simple electrical problems. You got this. Okay. Now that you know the absolute basics of RV electricity, you're going to want to check out this video where I'm going to walk you through how to use a very cheap and simple $5 multimeter from Harbor Freight to start solving more complex electrical problems in and around your RV. And when I say complex, don't worry. This is not very scary. If you could follow this video, you can become your own personal RV tech. But in the meantime, this has been RV repairwoman.