RV Grounding and Safety
Recently, on a Yahoo group devoted to the Winnebago View/Itasca Navion, a member posted about a potentially deadly experience he had. In the interest of safety I thought I should post it here: ~~~~...
Forum Discussion
Quick story related to the above posts.
We were staying at state park recently in IL. Since I haven't purchased a surge suppressor yet I'm in the habit of using a 120V/20A outlet tester along with a 20A>30A outlet adapter to check the pedestal wiring. The 30A outlet was ok, but out of curiosity I checked the 20A outlet -- the hot and neutral wires on it were reversed!
Needless to say, that can be very dangerous. My understanding is that in some rigs the neutral is connected to the frame and/or outer shell. If that were the case, the frame and/or 'skin' of the rig would become hot when its plugged into that shore power outlet.
I notified the camp hosts and they had the electrician repair it immediately (which surprised me).
Anyway, just a reminder to always check your shore power supply.
Equally important is confirming that any exposed metal that is supposed to be grounded, is. Even the best surge suppressor cannot check for proper grounding (see above).
We were staying at state park recently in IL. Since I haven't purchased a surge suppressor yet I'm in the habit of using a 120V/20A outlet tester along with a 20A>30A outlet adapter to check the pedestal wiring. The 30A outlet was ok, but out of curiosity I checked the 20A outlet -- the hot and neutral wires on it were reversed!
Needless to say, that can be very dangerous. My understanding is that in some rigs the neutral is connected to the frame and/or outer shell. If that were the case, the frame and/or 'skin' of the rig would become hot when its plugged into that shore power outlet.
I notified the camp hosts and they had the electrician repair it immediately (which surprised me).
Anyway, just a reminder to always check your shore power supply.
Equally important is confirming that any exposed metal that is supposed to be grounded, is. Even the best surge suppressor cannot check for proper grounding (see above).
