| 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. |