50 amps or 30 amps

[Velos]

Hope this poll works? Just wondering how common 30 amp rigs are?

[chirakawa]

I would guess that for every single 50 amp RV there are at least ten or more 30 amp RV's.

[Kirk W]

I didn't respond yet as I am going to suggest a minor modification to your poll first. Are you looking to know about all RVs or just those lived in fulltime or ............ ? I'm quite sure that if you mean every RV sold, then I'd have no doubts that 30A is by far the most common as all of the small units and the lower price units come that way. On the other hand, more and more that are built large enough to have two air conditioners have 50A service.

 

In our case, we had all 30A RV up until we bought our fulltime RV home in 1998 when one of the criteria I required was 50A service. But since we have returned to part-time and travel seasonally, we now own a small travel trailer that has only one air conditioner and it of mid size BTU rating and so has not need for more than 30A. I don't believe that I have ever seen a travel trailer of 25' or less length that had 50A available, even as an option.

[Ray,IN]

In the 1990's, a CG owner told be he was really upset with the new 100A motorhomes coming on the market. Installing the new wiring and electrical circuits was going to cost him 10's of thousands of dollars. Yes, a 50A RV is actually capable of drawing 100A - in a perfect scenario.

I do not pay extra to obtain 50A service when we know we do not need to run our basement air conditioner/heat pump. I operate from a 30A receptacle by using a step-down adapter.

[kb0zke]

We were at a campground this summer that had both 30A and 50A service available, but charged $2/day more for the 50A. It was cool enough that we didn't need both air conditioners, so we took the 30A service. Don't know if they would have known if we had used the 50A outlet, but since we weren't paying for it we didn't even try.

[Dennis M]

We were at a campground this summer that had both 30A and 50A service available, but charged $2/day more for the 50A. It was cool enough that we didn't need both air conditioners, so we took the 30A service. Don't know if they would have known if we had used the 50A outlet, but since we weren't paying for it we didn't even try.

 

That is fairly common. Unless it is particularly hot I always opt for the 30 amp site. We very rarely run the AC at night anyway.

[kb0zke]

Sorry, I wasn't all that clear. Every site had both 30A and 50A service available. It cost $2.00/day more to plug into the 50A outlet.

[trailertraveler]

The trailer originally had a 30 Amp service. If there is a choice of outlets, I often use the 50 Amp outlet because the 30 Amp outlets are often in poor condition or the breakers are weak and trip before the breakers in the trailer. I added a separate 20 Amp service to power outlets for things like a second electric space heater, toaster/toaster oven, electric frying pan, coffee maker or hair drier so that I did not have to worry about turning off the water heater, switching the fridge to gas,etc. if the AC was running. Some parks charge by what is at the site, although recently we have encountered more that do seem to rely on the honor system as to what your power requirements are/will be. Most of the Corps of Engineers and State Parks we have stayed at recently had 50, 30 & 20 Amp outlets with one price for the site. I prefer to be able to use two electric space heaters, the electric water heater and the fridge on electric when possible to avoid the inconvenience of running out of propane in the middle of the night because the furnace came on and used the last of the propane. To me the cost comparison between an additional charge for electric and using propane includes the aggrevation of running out of propane in the middle of the night and then having to find and go to a propane fill station. Some campgrounds have fairly reasonable propane prices and others do not meaning that a search of the net for fill stations and cost comparison may be necessary. When we had a motorhome, running out of propane meant disconnecting and driving to fill the tank as it seemed rare to find a propane service that would fill an RV on site.