Most but not all
Campground Electric hookups have been fine for my needs. I did find a few low voltage and not
properly wired places. I do check all Campground outlets with my homemade
gizmo. (See it under "OUTLET TESTING" on the left)
A correctly wired 120/240-volt 50-amp service will give you 12,000
watts and a 120-volt 30-amp service 3,600 watts. A cheater pigtail if it
works, theoretically would give you 6,000 watts.
Unfortunately this 6,000 watts is hard to get for a number of
reasons. If the campground is wired correctly the 20-amp outlet will be on
GFI so the pigtail doesn't work. Most older campgrounds with the 30-amp
service will have the 20-amp and the 30-amp wires on the same Main breaker
sharing the same HOT and Neutral wire.
Received the following FEEDBACK from abcarlson
concerning the wiring and breakers used on some RV Campground
pedestals.
It might be worth mentioning that on the 30-amp panel
example, that even though there is a 30-amp outlet/breaker, and a
20-amp outlet/breaker, you may not be able to draw 50 amps. It
depends on how the pedestal is wired. I have seen situations where
the pedestal is breakered for 30 amps, or the 20-amp breaker is
slaved from the 30-amp breaker.
The 50-amp situation is often the same, even though there
is a 50-amp 240V breaker (100 amps 120V), a 30-amp 120V breaker and
a 20-amp 120V breaker. The pedestal can be limited to 50 amps 240V.
It really depends on how they wired the RV Park. I've seen
both situations: individual breaker per pedestal, daisy chained
pedestals grouped together on a breaker. Either is legal, as long as
the circuit breaker is sized to protect the wire downstream. |
I would be concerned switching on appliances with an unknown amount
of wattage available with this setup. As I understand it some people are
happy with this but I believe an RV with heavy watts demands will have a
problem. |