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bill18163's avatar
bill18163
Explorer
Sep 19, 2018

30A and 50A electric

When you plug in your 50A or 30A electric at a campground are you plugging into a double pole 240V receptacle or 120V single pole receptacle? My wife and I bought our first trailer and I want to mount a receptacle on the outside of our garage to plug into for electric.
  • Ditto to what donn0128 said. If you don't need to have the air conditioning, a 20 amp outlet will be fine.

    If you hire an electrician to install a 30 amp outlet at home, make sure they know it's a NEMA TT-30 connector and it's 120 volt. To the uninitiated they bear a strong resemblance to the old style 240 volt 3-prong outlet used for electric dryers. Many have had the misfortune of having an electrician wire them for 240 volt, not knowing the difference, and then they zap most of the electrical system when they plug in their RV.
  • The 30 amp outlet uses the same type wiring as a regular 20 amp outlet except that you have to use 10 gauge wire for a short run and 8 gauge if 50 ft or beyond. If you don't know the difference between an RV 30 and a 3 prong 240 volt outlet, don't do the work yourself, hire someone. If you wire it incorrectly, you will severely damage your RV.
  • Unless you think you absolutely must have AC at home a simple 20A receptacle will power the trailer and refer.
    30A is a single 120VAC circuit,
    50A has two 120VAC circuits on one plug. In your breaker box you will want two 120VAC breakers. There are RV receptacle wiring schematics all over the internet you can look up and print out.