have it plugged in at home? If so, did you convert where you plug in your fifth wheel to a 50 amp????I am curious - a regular wall socket in a house - how many amps can be drawn from that?This is all stemming from DH thinking we need to get an electrician over here to get us a 50amp plug in. Keep in mind we are NOT going to be staying in the coach while at home - maybe a day here or day there just for fun, though.

Gooselover wrote:have it plugged in at home? If so, did you convert where you plug in your fifth wheel to a 50 amp????I am curious - a regular wall socket in a house - how many amps can be drawn from that?This is all stemming from DH thinking we need to get an electrician over here to get us a 50amp plug in. Keep in mind we are NOT going to be staying in the coach while at home - maybe a day here or day there just for fun, though.Your regular wall plug in is good for 15-20 amps. After that, depending on the distance, you will have some loss if you have to use an extension cord (for me, when my camper is parked out front - I have to use a 50' extension cord AND my camper's cord AND 3 adapters to go from 50amp to 15/20amp).In my setup, I won't run the air conditioner but will run a single small appliance at a time.I also have to disconnect each night out of fear of some lowlife realizing the amount of money laying on the ground in cords.

Most house circuits are 15 or 20 amps. You may have multiple receptacles and lights on the same circuit, so you have to consider the total draw, not just what the FW might use. For example, if a fridge or freezer is on the same circuit, that can be a pretty big draw, especially when the compressor first starts up for a cooling cycle.There are adapters to get you from 20amps to 50 amps, so the plug itself is not an issue.

We had a dedicated seperate RV 50 amp and seperate RV 30 amp hook-up installed directly adjacent to our RV driveway at our house when we bought our current 5'er 10 years ago. Our 5'er gets plugged in as soon as it's backed in and dropped from a trip. The idea is to keep our 5'er continually plugged into 50 amp service (which we've done for 10 years) and for an additional 30 amp connection for RV visitors to plug in to. We have a 130' stressed concrete RV driveway with sewer and water directly next to our house so we have plenty of room for visitors...sometimes too much room!!! Sometimes we can't get'em to leave!!!As for plugging into a 15 to 20 amp house socket...yep..it'll work. But yer not gonna be happy with it in time.We find we use the camper at the house more than we ever expected. It's like having a 5th bedroom. We stayed in it 2 weeks last year while our house was painted. It's kind of become my so-called "man cave" from time to time. Visiting friends like to stay in the camper as a novelty. And, if you're going to run power, it only costs a skosh more to go 1st class and install a 50 amp hook-up. If yer gonna do it, do it right the first time. Just make sure you hire a qualified electrician who's knowledgable in RV electrical connections. We had also to increase our incoming house power panel service from 200 amps to 300 amp service to handle the extra 50 and 30 amp RV hookups to be safe. And of course the city wanted their cut to verify the installation was done to "code". But, do it once correctly and yer done. Good luck.Happy camping!!! See y'all down the road!!!:)

You can draw 15-20 amps from a normal outlet, using an adapter to hook up to the camper. This will allow you to keep the battery charged, run lights, fridge, or other low draw items.To run AC or other large draw, hubby is right, you will need a larger 30-50 amp service installed.If he is handy with electrical, he could do this himself, wife being the helper of course.Jerry

While you can run some things off of a 15-20 amp circuit, at some point you will want more. I think you will be better off in the long run getting a dedicated circuit for the FW.

When Your 5'ver is at Home - Do you.........???

45 Replies

mountainkowboy
Explorer
Dec 19, 2013
Ours is plugged in right now, along with the TC. We are.......flitty, in a word, and like to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat.
ontariofarmer
Explorer
Dec 19, 2013
You have lots of answers, but I'll give you mine as well.

We go out quite often in the summer, so no need to keep it plugged in. Now that winter is here, the battery is in the shop on a shelf.

We had some gravel leveled out so the 5er is parked on that.

I made a pole for the hydro something like you would find in a campground. We tell everyone that might be interested in staying the weekend, "We have hydro and water hookups here, no sewer". :)
abc40kids
Explorer
Dec 19, 2013
We had some work done on the house which included new driveway where the 5er sits so we ran a 50amp to a post just like at a cg and now it can be used year round for whatever, got the satellite hooked up as well, just no sewer. It's nice to have the ac on in the summer getting things ready to leave.
TowedWhereIGo
Explorer
Dec 18, 2013
Ours is plugged in to it's own 30 amp deadicated line and sits on a 12 wide concrete driveway next to the house all the times. We keep the cable plugged in too. Spoiled.
jeremyp60
Explorer
Dec 17, 2013
While rebuilding my house and living in my camper we had a trailer box installed with 50 and 30 amp plugs, I leave the trailer plugged in and slides out while at usable temps. As the season turns we close and cover for the winter. All power is shut off.
oilslick
Explorer
Dec 17, 2013
goducks10 wrote:
I don't see any issues with leaving it plugged in all the time as opposed to pulling the batteries and putting them on a maintainer.

While I pull the batteries on all 3 trailers I don't keep them on a maintainer I just keep them in the warm on a piece of wood, they are there to use for boosting or whatever over the winter, it beats them freezing solid if they get discharged for whatever reason, the constant need to blow snow means you can't have a 30 amp cable buried somewhere.
goducks10
Explorer
Dec 16, 2013
I don't see any issues with leaving it plugged in all the time as opposed to pulling the batteries and putting them on a maintainer. The new RV convertors trickle as well as a maintainer. It's a lot easier to leave the batteries in and plugged in. Why unhook them (2 G24's), pack them to where ever, then when the season gets going again, drag them back out and hook them back up if you can simply run an electrical cord to your RV? If I didn't have power where the 5'er is parked then yes I would drag them out and hook to a maintainer.

That's why I leave mine plugged in 24/7.
Greentow
Explorer
Dec 16, 2013
My rig parks less than 3 feet from the house, and I had a 30A installed at the fence line. It stays plugged in all the time, (3d freezer/fridge). Our rig stays loaded and stocked all the time, 15 minutes for meds, pets, camera, laptop, and we're out of here. Grocery stores are everywhere.
Dave_H_M
Explorer II
Dec 15, 2013
Gooselover wrote:
For those of you that have stated that your RV is plugged in all the time.....why do you have it plugged in all the time?????

Well Now I have to give my "opinion." :W I would never consider keeping my fifth wheel plugged in all the time. I do not like things plugged in and unattended just because. I have a battery switch on mine. Right now it is out there in the barn with the batt turned of and a maintainer keeping the batt up.

As far as bringing the batts in in the winter. I personally think it is a challenge to maintain all the pets in the house much less my RV batt. Then what about all those other neglected batts that have to stay out in the winter like the tractor, lawn equipment, etc. My RV batt loves company and it stays out there with all the rest of the batts.

And yes, I do have a 30 amp plug right by the fifth wheel in the barn. We lived in that sucker for 8 months while the stick house was going up.

So it looks like you are taking in all the advice and will be making your own decisions. That is the way to go.
christopherglen
Explorer
Dec 15, 2013
I have both 30 and 50 amp in my detached garage directly behind where the 5er parks. I leave a 50' rv30 amp extension cord plugged in, and next to where the trailer parks. Pop the twistlock to rv30 pigtail on the side, and the extension plugs right in. I started getting real lazy last year and stopped dragging out the 50 amp cord every time we got home.