Polarity Reversing?

[FLGASUNRADER]

I went camping this past weekend and everything was fine. Came home and plugged in and everything was still fine. Yesterday there was a power outage, transformers blew up, lots of rain. I went outside to hit the "test" button to trip the exterior outlet and got shocked. This morning I went out to turn on the heater to maintain a dry RV and nothing happened. I plugged in a little tester that I have and the hot/ground reversal lights lit up. How is this fixed? Nothing else is working either, no AC or refrigerator. I hope the panel isn't fried!

[zero]

I went camping this past weekend and everything was fine. Came home and plugged in and everything was still fine. Yesterday there was a power outage, transformers blew up, lots of rain. I went outside to hit the "test" button to trip the exterior outlet and got shocked. This morning I went out to turn on the heater to maintain a dry RV and nothing happened. I plugged in a little tester that I have and the hot/ground reversal lights lit up. How is this fixed? Nothing else is working either, no AC or refrigerator. I hope the panel isn't fried!

Polarity cannot be reversed without either changing magnetic fields (not possible in your case) or by switching wires around. Sounds like something else is going on. Exactly what I don't know. Are you saying you plugged one of those little three-light testers into an AC outlet in your RV and it showed reversed connections? If so, what happens when you plug the same tester into the source AC outlet at your house?

[FLGASUNRADER]

Yes I plugged it in to both the outlet in the house and the outlets in the RV. The house outlet lit up correct and the RV outlet lit up as being reversed. I had checked it when I first got it from my grandfather and it was correct. I was just doing some reading and it says that a short might appear as a reversal. Not sure where I would even start with that.

[Maineah]

If nothing worked in the camper the test light should not have lit. Check your MH panel box it may well have a 30 amp breaker that has tripped you could have feed back issue through your converter charger they often are directly wired to the MH power cord. When transformers explode they can do strange things to related wiring.

[Skydancer2992]

You need a volt meter to check the potential between the hot wire to ground, neutral to ground, and hot to neutral. (Neutral is wide blade/hole and hot is the narrow blade/hole in a correctly wired outlet).

Correct readings should be approx 120, 0, 120.

If you get 120, 120, 0, then you have a short between neutral and hot somewhere. If so, start isolating. Open all breakers. Test each circuit by opening a breaker and testing the corresponding circuit.

Isolate your power cords/extension cords and do a resistance check with the ohm meter. Should be infinite resistance between the conductors.

Normally, your home circuit breaker should have opened. If the short is a small amperage, then the home breaker may not have opened. Any short to ground should have activated the GCFI outlet. The GCFI will need to be reset to restore power to the outlet.

[FLGASUNRADER]

Before I left for work I opened all of the breakers and unplugged the RV. I was hoping that water was the issue and I think it was. The GFCI outlet is garbage I couldn't get it to trip so it must have shorted out and not tripped. I plugged everything in and closed the breakers a minute ago to find it now works fine. I will be replacing it ASAP and getting a good outlet cover. I appreciate the responses, it's nice to have people to bounce ideas off of.

[Maineah]

The neutral in an RV is isolated from the ground they are not connected together. A GFI does not need a ground to work. A GFI will not reset if it has no power. The little tester light needs very little current to light they have no load. The polarity can not change unless it was tampered with.