Pedestals open grounds.

DrewE wrote:

Acampingwewillgo wrote:
Just another thought, something I experienced not long ago and coincidentally at a Thousand Trails Park also. I was getting intermittent open ground/open neutral on my 50 amp plug in Surge Guard, I was also getting an open ground alarm on my plug in voltage/frequency meter. Long story short, someone's motor home on the same pedestal loop as mine was at fault. As soon as he left(un plugged) all the adjacent pedestals had no issues. There was a problem in his electrical on his RV.

That should not be possible if things are wired properly (i.e. for a plugged in motorhome, even one with bad wiring, to cause the neutral/ground bond to be bad). The problem would have to be with the actual neutral/ground bond being poor or the ground line having a bad connection. If his RV was faulty in that it leaked power to ground, that would cause a high impedance bond to show a potential difference between the neutral and the ground, which is what the EMSs are looking for...but the poor bond exists and is a safety concern regardless of whether the electrically leaky RV is plugged in.

Of course, a motorhome that has current returning via the ground lead has a ground fault somewhere in it and is also faulty and dangerous...but that, in itself, would not cause the rest of the system to appear bad.

One scenario is if one run of pedestals in a CG that are all daisy-chained from the same feeder cable has an open ground at the CG's main distribution panel and an RV comes along that has a hot to chassis/frame short and plugs in, all RVs on that pedestal run will have a hot skin condition. This has been termed a reflected hot skin condition and is probably what happened to Acampingwewillgo.

If your EMS shuts down on an open ground condition, you can still have a hot skin condition because the EMS doesn't disconnect your RV's ground wire from the pedestal. Do not expect your EMS to shut down and protect you from a dangerous condition under all circumstances.

If your EMS does happen to shut down on an open ground, it would be a good idea to take a voltmeter to the pedestal and check to see if there is a ground connection or not (or a receptacle tester). A non-contact voltage tester (NCVT) can be used to test for a hot skin. The best thing to do is check a pedestal before you plug your RV into it, especially if you are unfamiliar with the CG.