New electric pedestal at home

Artum Snowbird wrote:
With most things power wise, it seems prudent to put in a lot more wire size instead of just enough. Now, for example, if you put in enough for 50 amps and your circuit breaker is only 30, you will be comfortable knowing that if a shop comes off the side, or a welding plug, a freezer, or anything else that might take a steady load, you can put in a sub panel out there and still have your 30 to run the rig happily.

Maybe even going the extra now to put in a panel and then drop to a 30 amp plug might make sense.

Copper cable is expensive and larger sizes get very expensive. If the OP is installing conduit, it will be easy to pull a larger cable if he needs it later...plus a 50amp RV has 4 conductors not 3, so he still needs to pull cable in the future.

Don't forget to add the 30' for the RV cable to get from the outlet into the RV breaker box.

Plug your numbers into a voltage drop calculator and it will spit out the answer. Probably a good idea to check the available voltage first.
- If your house panel is starting around 120v, a 5% drop means your outlet will have 114v power. Above 110v is usually fine.
- If you house panel is marginal and only has 110v, a 5% drop means you are feeding a marginal 104.5v into the RV.

Another question, no one asked is what do you plan to run? If you won't be running the air/con, you can probably just run a 15-20amp line. You are limiting yourself but if you never plan to run any high amp appliances, why waste the money.

I would build for what you have.... 30 amps, 120 volts.
100' I would plan to go #8 but also consult an electrician and pull a permit.

I would run the wire for 50 amp.

I'm running 125" of 10AWG to mine and then a 50' 30A extension cord. My voltage drop is 3V with the AC running.
So, I would use 10awg but if you feel like you must over build, go with 8 awg. 6 awg is totally unnecessary but if for some reason you do run it, you may as well move up to a 50A service.

BTW, the NEC spec is 10awg for up to 100'.

Haven't measured the distance yet, just sitting here in the recliner. It's too cold to go outside. Larry you're right, #6 is pretty pricey-I think the last time I looked it was about $1 more per foot. Put in a 100amp sub panel in our garage and I think the electrician ran single 0 service wire to it and was about $4 a foot. I'll do this myself as I wasn't real comfortable putting a 100 amp box in-plus that wire is just too hard to work with. Got a few more weeks to figure it out. Gary

“Was hoping to get by with #8...”

Famous last words before you do it right the second time.

bob213 wrote:
According to what I read here #6 should be good for 100' at 30 amps.
RV Electric

It is interesting that the source you refer to actually recommends using #10 wire for the OP circuit.

"For most 120/240V systems using cables of adequate ampacity, voltage drop is not a concern unless cable lengths are well over a hundred feet."

The OP actually states his run will not exceed 100 ft. and will most likely be less than 100 ft.

Your recommendation for #6 would be fine, but would be unnecessarily expensive.

routeforty wrote:
Probably will never be 50amp but who knows?

Everyone I know with 30 amps wishes they had put in 50 amp service. It's just the nature of the beast. Even smaller campers are coming with 50 amp cords now.

I put 30 amp RV at the house and am in the process of putting in 50 amp so I can run all 3 A/C's there. I have four 50 amp RV services out back but that doesn't do me any good when I load or unload at the house when it's 2000 degrees outside.:S I run the generator now but sometimes the lady of the house doesn't want to git-r done for hours.

Already have the 30amp box, and yes it will be in conduit. Was hoping to get by with #8 but after reading the link it looks like #6 is what I'll need to go with. Probably will never be 50amp but who knows?? Wish I could put in a shop there but the village won't let me put sides on the shelter, only floor and roof. Oh the fun of living in a town with zoning. Takes some getting used to. Just moved here from large acreage in the country with no zoning or rule-do what you want. But we're really downsizing to where we can leave for long periods of time. A tradeoff I guess.

Run 6/3 UFB in conduit It could be upgraded to 50a 240v someday.
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