Calling an electrician
We have a 2014 Itasca with a Norcold 4 door refer. According to the Norcold site, it draws 1.9 amps and needs 108v AC to work. We have a garage with a 100 amp sub panel off the house that I wish to pl...
Forum Discussion
A household 50A circuit (for a range), if new work, is identical to an RV 50A circuit: a 4 wire, 120/240V with ground, using the exact same NEMA connector and wiring.
Old 50A range installations often did eliminate the safety ground (or, perhaps more precisely, combined the neutral and safety ground into a single conductor) and this is still found and legal in existing homes, but is not used for new installations.
There's no way to plug a 50A RV cord into a 3 wire range outlet, it just won't fit. There's no harm in plugging a 50A RV cord into a 4 wire range outlet, as it's exactly the same thing electrically.
The more common problem is with 30A RV receptacles, which are superficially similar looking to older 30A 240V three wire dryer receptacles, but are not 240V connections; interchanging the two (either physically or through carelessness or cluelessness in wiring) will indeed cause problems for the RV when it gets 240V.
To the OP: The minimum circuit size that you can generally install per electric code would be a 15A circuit, with wire sized for a 15A load (minimum of 14 gauge, probably larger given the long run). Even though you may not ever use it for more than a few amps, the circuit needs to be sized for the outlet etc. Often the cost of the wire is relatively a small part of the cost of the installation (labor and conduit or whatever is not inexpensive), so the difference in cost between a proper 50A RV circuit and a 15A one may not be too great, and obviously the utility of the larger circuit is larger.
Old 50A range installations often did eliminate the safety ground (or, perhaps more precisely, combined the neutral and safety ground into a single conductor) and this is still found and legal in existing homes, but is not used for new installations.
There's no way to plug a 50A RV cord into a 3 wire range outlet, it just won't fit. There's no harm in plugging a 50A RV cord into a 4 wire range outlet, as it's exactly the same thing electrically.
The more common problem is with 30A RV receptacles, which are superficially similar looking to older 30A 240V three wire dryer receptacles, but are not 240V connections; interchanging the two (either physically or through carelessness or cluelessness in wiring) will indeed cause problems for the RV when it gets 240V.
To the OP: The minimum circuit size that you can generally install per electric code would be a 15A circuit, with wire sized for a 15A load (minimum of 14 gauge, probably larger given the long run). Even though you may not ever use it for more than a few amps, the circuit needs to be sized for the outlet etc. Often the cost of the wire is relatively a small part of the cost of the installation (labor and conduit or whatever is not inexpensive), so the difference in cost between a proper 50A RV circuit and a 15A one may not be too great, and obviously the utility of the larger circuit is larger.
