Last night, the AC in our house decided to fail after being installed only nine months ago. I prefer a play on words, and now refer to it as "Trane" wreck... Since it was after 10pm, I called the answering service for the AC company and they said it would be $150 for the tech to come out and check it on the weekend. Being the cheapskate that I am, I decided phooey on paying $150 for an after hours call. It could wait till Monday, when the warranty will pay for the work. Since it was 87 degrees and getting warmer, we knew we couldn't sleep in the house. Thank goodness, I can park my FW on my property, and I have 30amp service set up to run it when needed. We turned on the AC in the fiver, and in an hour, it was cool enough to sleep comfortably. So we decided to do a camping trip on our own property. It sure gives us peace of mind to know that we have a "second home" when it's needed!

My 5vr is parked next to house with full hookups.......fridge is always ON & COLDAll we need to is open slideouts and it's a: Emergency shelter, guess house, man-cave etc.Does make it nice having it right there....ready!

We had a straight line wind whip through our Village in June this year. I have a Generac back up natural gas generator that took a lightning strike so I had no A/C or fridge until the power came on 48 hours later. So we slept in the camper for 16 nights in our side yard waiting for the new A/C to be installed. Best 30A service I have ever used. LOL

Just the "rationale" (and no, don't read that as "excuse"!) I need to have a 30A line run in garage. Couldn't quite justify expense for the couple hours the trailer is parked in our driveway to unload and wash after trips. With a home A/C unit that is 12+ years old, I know we are on borrowed time and as luck can have it, early Friday evenings seem to have a high probability of being linked to failures!

TomHaycraft wrote:Just the "rationale" (and no, don't read that as "excuse"!) I need to have a 30A line run in garage. Couldn't quite justify expense for the couple hours the trailer is parked in our driveway to unload and wash after trips. With a home A/C unit that is 12+ years old, I know we are on borrowed time and as luck can have it, early Friday evenings seem to have a high probability of being linked to failures!If your not doing it yourself besure the electrician knows that it is a 110v circuit. There have been several horror stories where it was connected as a 220 line and messed up everything.

We've been sleeping in our camper almost every night this entire Summer, except when on the road. Only rarely do we sleep in the house. This will change in the winter, too much $$$ to heat the camper every night. But weather has been good this Summer, not too hot. Best thing we could have done was to install that 30 amp service for the camper. Since you have the 30 amp service and you can park at home, why not spend more time in the camper? It's a GREAT get away and it makes you feel like your camping all the time! TomHayCraft,I ran a 30 amp service in my garage. It has a 100 amp service, so I had lots of blanks in the breaker panel. My garage (not attached to the house) is insulated and paneled inside, so I removed the paneling around the breaker box and a section of panel where I wanted to put the outside hookup. I then went to Lowes, talked to the guys in the electrical department and they fixed me up with the correct wire. I ended up getting 100 foot, measuring the distance from the panel, the to rafters, across the garage to the other side, and then down the opposite wall. It turned out to be about 80 feet. I went ahead and strung the wire myself. I took it to the breaker panel and left it dangling. I went to my local RV dealer (Modern Trailer Sales, Anderson, Indiana) and purchased an exterior 30 amp box. (I found out later that Lowes had them also, about $10 cheaper, but not as nice). I like the set-up of this one, so it was a good selection.I then ran the wire outside the wall through a short PVC (gray color) conduit and into the outlet box. I did not connect to the actual plug.All the wire, plug, and everything was in place. I then had an electrician make the connection in the breaker panel, and he attached the wires to the plug in the outside box, and the election provided the correct breaker fuse. The electrician and breaker fuse cost me $100. The wire cost me about $50 and about $20 for conduit. (I think, it's been a while), and I did the labor of running the wire myself to save labor costs from the electrician. It took me a couple days to remove the panel, run the wire (because I ran everything through conduit from fuse box to outside connection (found out by the electrician I did not need to do that, but he was very impressed anyway). It took the electrician 10 minutes (no kidding) to hook up all the wires and install the breaker.He flipped the breaker and I had power to the camper! We've run the air conditioner and all the electronics just fine in this camper ever since.What I'm suggesting is, if you run the wire yourself, get the outside electric box and prep everything ahead of time, you can have an electrician do the final connections and get out much cheaper than you may expect. For a couple hundred dollars, you can have a safe and convenient power source for those times you do have the camper at home. Just a suggestion how you can do it and reduce the expense. Good luck!

FW Comes in Handy! | Good Sam Community

ScottG
Nomad
Sep 22, 2014
anaro wrote:
We've been thinking about getting this done. We have a 50 amp 5er. What exactly should we be asking the electrician for? We won't be camping here but are thinking it would be nice for getting the fridge cold and turning on the AC when doing things inside.

You want the exact same receptacle a modern range uses - a NEMA 14-50R 125/250VAC.
TakingThe5th
Explorer
Sep 22, 2014
stro1965 wrote:
GrumpyandGrandma wrote:

If your not doing it yourself be sure the electrician knows that it is a 110v circuit. There have been several horror stories where it was connected as a 220 line and messed up everything.

This happened to me. Luckily I questioned it before plugging in my RV.

This was another reason I used the 50/30/20 RV box. The 30 amp 110 is correctly wired in the box and 220 volts is available at the 50 amp outlet for all the folks who have welders, generators, etc. Yes-it costs more but you get a lot back in safety and usefulness in my opinion. Something to think about.
MFL
Nomad II
Sep 22, 2014
I recently installed RV30 at home. I did it myself, after PMing a very knowledgeable forum member, that is an electrical engineer.

I used 8/2 wire, due to 75' run. I bought a Connecticut Electric box, that came complete with breaker. You do need to have an understanding of RV electric, if you do this yourself.

Like mentioned earlier, I thought about having an electrician finish the job, after I did all the hard work. I had everything I needed, plus knew where to get help, on this forum, when needed.

I shut the power off, took me all of 20 minutes to make connections, power back on, done! I checked with meter first, plugged it in, works great!

Jerry
anaro
Explorer
Sep 22, 2014
We've been thinking about getting this done. We have a 50 amp 5er. What exactly should we be asking the electrician for? We won't be camping here but are thinking it would be nice for getting the fridge cold and turning on the AC when doing things inside.
stro1965
Explorer
Sep 22, 2014
GrumpyandGrandma wrote:
TomHaycraft wrote:
Just the "rationale" (and no, don't read that as "excuse"!) I need to have a 30A line run in garage. Couldn't quite justify expense for the couple hours the trailer is parked in our driveway to unload and wash after trips. With a home A/C unit that is 12+ years old, I know we are on borrowed time and as luck can have it, early Friday evenings seem to have a high probability of being linked to failures!

If your not doing it yourself besure the electrician knows that it is a 110v circuit. There have been several horror stories where it was connected as a 220 line and messed up everything.

This happened to me. Luckily I questioned it before plugging in my RV.
Halmfamily
Explorer
Sep 22, 2014
My brother, a master electrician, suprised us last year when he came to visit my parents and installed a 50 amp service for our fiver at our house while we were on a trip. I called to thank him and he siad that was going to be his new fiver when he comes to visit our parents. Mom and dads driveway is too small to park so he will visit when we are gone. I told him it would be easier to just stay in our house, but like a true camper he said that is not a vacation. Thanks brother.
TakingThe5th
Explorer
Sep 21, 2014
We backyard camp as well and last year installed a 50/30/20 amp service box. The cost differential between 30 and 50 amp wasn't great enough in my opinion not to go larger. Glad we did, that setup has proven quite useful.
ScottG
Nomad
Sep 21, 2014
Well that's pretty "cool"
;)
ford_truck_guy
Nomad
Sep 21, 2014
We too have driveway camped for a couple of reasons... The biggest was a few years back we had a horrible storm take out the neighborhoods power for over a week in July... We lived in the fifth wheel the whole time with our Genny...
goducks10
Explorer
Sep 21, 2014
Had to have a new sewer line installed last year. Used the 5'er for 3 days. Showers and toilet.

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