[Larry & Diane]

Do you know how many amps you’re drawing? We have the top-line Progressive Industries surge protector which allows me (and campground/RV park management to see actually how much power I’m pulling).

I’m not an electrician or an electrical engineer, but in talking to a few campground owners about electricity and having recently upgraded the service at our house to handle the new race shop and Jamestown Industries shore power outlet for the motorhome I’ve learned a few things.

When the electrician and the POCO “sized” the new service for the house, they made some assumptions that not everything would “run” at the same time. The electrician calculated that a new 320amp service would be sufficient, but the POCO said 400amps is that I needed (which the POCO couldn’t supply me). The POCO couldn’t give me a good reason why they thought I needed so much capacity, but the electrician was more helpful. The POCO didn’t necessarily assume “everything” will be on at the same time, just much of it. The electrician and I talked through what I would be using and that’s how we concluded 320amps would be enough; and its been fine.

A large unnamed campground originally had very few sites with electricity. As the camping and RV market matured, the owners realized they needed more sites with electricity, allot more. The owner told me they elected to electrify a significant number of their sites a few years with the traditional 50/30/20amp pedestals. Owner wanted sufficient capacity added to the campground so that each site could have an honest 50amps available. His POCO argued that wasn’t necessary. Obviously you don’t argue with the POCO so the initial capacity was less than what the owner wanted. The first “big weekend” proved that the POCO had undersized the capacity. The owner said the POCO was there over the weekend trying to make things work. If I recall correctly the following week the POCO was out at the campground increasing the capacity (new service wires and transformers).

So in Moab they could be experiencing a number of issues … insufficient capacity to the park, insufficient capacity within the wiring of the park, deteriorating breaker on a main or subpanel, deteriorating breaker at the pedestal.

The breakers on RV pedestal are used quite a bit as switches. I’ve read elsewhere that using breakers as switches materially reduces their life and causes them to get “weak”. Doesn’t make sense that this would be, but I’ve read from a number of different sources that’s the case.

Frustrating that a campground/RV park owner/manager wouldn’t understand the basics of one their most important services. What’s it going to cost to have an electrician make a simple service call to install a new breaker … probably less than the site rent he or she is going lose on just this one customer.

And it might not even be the breaker. I could be that wires in the pedestal (or somewhere along the way) need to be retorqued or the contacts between the breaker and the pedestal that the electricity travels across has a little corrosion and needs to be cleaned; although you’re expect that in the salt air near the ocean before you’d see it in what I believe to be dry Moab.

[Archived]

We stayed in that park last October, and didn’t have any problems, but it was probably cooler that time of year. We had a similar problem in a campground near Yosemite park in California with the breaker overheating. The problem was the wires coming into the pedestal was undersized for the 50-Amp service. But of course, the campground maintenanc person did not want to hear that.

[Archived]

If your bus plug was hot, then you are heavy loaded, but if only the breaker is hot, then the breaker is going. I can change a 50 amp breaker in three minutes flat and I am not a NASCAR pit crew. What you have is a lazy maintenance man. I would take down a 10 spot row in the summer and re torque all the main connections from my main leads (350kml) and replace the breakers on the first two rows of my park as we used those for the over nighters where the breaker was used as a switch. Bought the breakers in bulk and got a good price and the little work, during the slow time in October, sure saved those late night call outs. The rest of the park got all connections re torqued once a year. A lazy maintenance man can cost you a lot of customers.

[Fred F.]

Ron, the problem was not that uncommon and you happened to run into someone responsible for the electric power boxes that did not fully understand the issue.

First everyone should know and understand in our coaches we have to manage our electric power. We cannot load up our devices, see about 50 amps per leg and think we are OK. We are not because we do not always see all devices that are going to turn themselves on but which do not show electric consumption until they cycle on. Some devices of that nature are water pumps, water heaters, and aux. air compressors.

We should limit our current to 40 amps per leg or less and that will not only allow the AC units to cycle as they normally do with a heavy initial current draw, but it will also allow our water pump or HW tank to cycle. If in doubt turn those devices off because if we push the limits when they cycle on the breakers will trip.

But campgrounds all have a requirement to maintain their power outlets. First, the circuit breakers are used as “on-off” switches and they never were designed for that type of use. All breaker manufacturers expect maximum reliable current flow of 80% of the breaker rating, and continued use of more than that has a greater expectation the breaker will trip. Campgrounds add to the problem by failing to maintain the power outlets by insuring the electrical connections are clean an tight. A loose connection at the breaker will increase resistance which in turn will create the heat felt at the breaker. It is probable that all that was needed was for the maintenance man to tighten the screw that holds the wire to the breaker.

Are Prevost coaches a problem? If the owner of the coach does not understand the limits of power and how to manage that power then it is possible the coach is the problem. I would not blame the campground, but I would suggest because the man blamed the coach before he considered he had a loose connection or failing breaker he could have been the problem.

[Archived]

We always pulled the front panel of the service box (one screw) and changed out the breaker as that showed the customer that we were actually trying to cure the problem. When changing the breaker if the number 8 feed wire to the breaker was hot, then we also informed the customer that they may be pulling too much load because the wire going to the breaker was also hot. Since they saw that we trying to address the problem and changed the breaker with a new one, they were more likely to look at their usage. Very little work to keep a customer happy.

[Fred F.]

Hi

I carry a 50 amp breaker just for this reason. If I run into a situation like this, I change the breaker and the next day I take the old breaker to the maintenance dept and tell them I had to change it cause it was tripping. They have always replaced the breaker and thanked me for changing it.

Just a thought.

[Roy]

I should add that when Ron is using all 4 AC units at once he is a part the problem. If he is using lights in the coach he is drawing power to keep the batteries charged due to light usage. If he has 4 AC units on I guarantee they are cycling and while running they are going to draw 13 amps each but when they cycle on it is likely they will draw in excess of 30 amps. I have seen mine ramp up the inrush current as high as 39 amps.

Then there are all the little loads we don’t consider, including the refrigerator, TV, water pump, etc.

I’m not giving the campground guy any slack because he made an assumption it was Ron’s fault when in fact it could have been his breaker or loose connections. I am suggesting however that power management of our coaches is important also.

[Art]

I hate it for you Ronald, sure puts a damper on a few weeks of expected fun. It happens all the time, the campgrounds don’t do any pedestal maintenance and most don’t have a clue about power needs. Many times I’ve had the campground come out and put a meter on the shitty breaker, see 120 volts on each leg and proclaim my bus is the problem. They’re not smart enough to understand what happens when amps get loaded and volts are now in the 106 – 108 range.

I sat on the generator for 2 days recently at River Ranch in Lake Wales until they finally got an electrician to come out and verify the breaker was junk. The local maintenance guy kept insisting there was no power. I couldn’t move, no other sites available.

Fred had a campground for many years, he’s our power expert….

[Per]

Try this place. Guy owns the one in Park City, UT and its great.

http://www.portalrvresort.com

[Archived]

for the suggestion.

I can not believe that I am part of the problem because what I am doing, i.e. connecting the bus to 50A and the trailer to 30A and running my 4 AC units etc., even cooking on the induction cooktop and using the microwave at the same time, Is something we have been doing for years, now.

The last place we just came from is a small campground. 27 spaces. Hole in the wall place. No pool, no amenities. Just FHU. I was plugged in there for 2 weeks and all was good. Even when temps reached the 100’s.

The resort manager at Archview mentioned one other thing. Namely, that the power company took away the 3-phase and that this was contributing to their problems. No clue what that means.

Besides, he openly admitted that they do not have enough power to provide 50A to all pull-thru. He was even concerned about the empty pull-thru next to us being rented or not. I think that says it all.

Even after we unplugged the trailer and turned-up 2 AC to keep them from coming on, the problem continued into the evening. Only after it got late, when the temps had gone down and, perhaps, people were drawing less power, did things look-up.

Well, we will see this morning … Frustrating, especially, when you pay “resort” prices.

[Ronald]

I have a stupid question

has anyone other them me checked the temp of the breakers when we are in 90 plus temps

mine run 95 to 105 F AC breakers with OAT 95ish

[joel]

Thanks for the heads up. We are headed there today. May have to make changes.

Roy

---

1999 XLV X-6872,  liberty #440

[Andy]

Ron, you have amp meters somewhere in your coach to show current draw on your 120V circuits. I’ve never seen a coach that did not have the ability to monitor values for both 120V and 12 or 24 volt circuits.

I am not saying you cannot get away with running all 4 A/C units, but if you do that then you have to consider you are pushing the limit and as soon as you hit a campground that has a lazy circuit breaker or loose electrical connections you are going to have issues.

Remember the campground power supply is rated at 50 amps per 120V leg so if you exceed that on a leg the breaker will trip. There is a small delay so the spike in current draw from a cycling A/C unit might not cause a problem, but things add up fast. Here are some values from my coach and its devices.

Each A/C, 13 amps running, up to 39 amps on start up.

Water pump, starts at around 12 but as water pressure increases can reach 15 amps

HW tank, 10 amps.

Aux compressor (needed to keep slide seals inflated) starts at about 13 and goes up to 15.

Dryer, 10 amps per leg.

Refrigerator, around 6 amps

Outdoor grill or cooktop, about 10 amps per leg.

Electric lights, depending on how many are on could be as much as 20 amps or more, especially if the tivoli lights are on because the inverters are putting a charge into the batteries to match the lighting current draw. ( have limited my inverters to 10 amps because we do not dry camp and I want loads kept to a minimum)

Miscellaneous phantom loads, on my coach about 4 amps and that is for things like clocks, alarm system, TV and radio memories, Crestron, switch lights, closet and cabinet lights, etc.

You have zero control over how well an RV park maintains its pedestals, but even if a pedestal and its components are brand new, and the pedestal is a short distance from the transformer and all connections are tight, and the wire size is at least #6 you can only be assured of not tripping the breaker if your usage is 40 amps or less.

We built temporary power outlets (the UL description of the RV power boxes) for multiple manufacturers and we used circuit breakers by the tens of thousands from various suppliers including Cutler Hammer, Siemens, Murray, Square D, etc. and despite the 50 amp rating nobody would assure us they would handle more than 80% of their rating on a continuous basis. We also knew because we built boxes and private labelled them for multiple manufacturers that their primary purpose was at construction sites for powering contractor’s tools and the circuit breakers were not intended to be used as switches. Yet in an RV park every time a rig comes or goes the breakers are used as switches which impacts their life.

If you have gotten away with the electrical usage you describe for a long time you should go out and play the lottery because you have been lucky.

[Joe]

During high heat conditions in rv parks, I will usually turn off all battery charging from inverters, water heater, aux air pump, etc. during the day. Easy to catch up at night when demand is down and I can usually function on 2 a/c units. Ever looked at your current draw with 2 a/c’s and a microwave all running on one leg?

[David]

So far, so good. But, then again, half the park departed this morning. So there is probably little demand on the system at this time. Let’s see what happens, when the park fills-up again.

I watched the maintenance guy when he opened the panel and replaced the breaker. Not sure, if this means anything, but it was pretty nasty inside with a heavy coating of red stone dust. I did check the breaker just now, a few hours later and it is fairly cool to the touch.

Jon, thank you very much for your detailed explanations! So much to learn, so little time.

I do have a Surge Guard ammeter in the electrical compartment. With 4 AC running, washer washing, house fridge, fridge box and wine cooler in the basement, water pump and some lights and misc. on and running, the display showed 118V, 27A on Leg 1 and 117V, 27A on Leg 2. Amperage varied slightly up and down. Highest readout was 32A on L1 and 27A on L2.

Ronald