Recommendation for heater?

DutchmenSport wrote:
In my previous 3 travel trailers I could not run very much more than the standard equipment that came with the trailer. Maybe a coffee pot and a toaster, or hair blower, but that was about all.

It took some trial and error, but here's some tricks I discovered to stay within the 30 amp allocated usage all my travel trailers permitted.

1st. I always ran my water heater on gas, not electric. Although electric does not run all the time, just when it's actually heating, about the time I plugged in a space heater at 1500 watts and then the water heater turned on, it would blow the breaker. So, running your water heater on Gas, saves some electrical AMPS from that 30 limit.

2nd. When running the microwave, we always turned the air conditioners off first.

3rd. If we ran a portable electric heater, or an electric skillet, or an electric griddle, we always plugged it into the campground shore power post by running a separate orange 50 foot extension cord into the camper. Every camper we had, I was able to find a hole somewhere I could fish the orange extension cord through from the outside. The port where the camper electrical unbilical cord fed through was usually the place. I had to dismantle some paneling, but eventually I made a way to fish the orange cord and bring it inside the camper. I did this with 3 different travel trailers.

When using electric griddles or electric frying pans outside, we always plug them into the campground shore power post, never through the camper itself for this very reason.

These simple changes in the way we used the camper made all the difference in the world.

Our last camper, our Outback 298RE, I could run one 1500 watt space heater through the camper wiring as long as the water heater was on gas. I then ran a second extension cord from the campground post, put it through the umbilical port and could run a second 1500 watt space heater.

But in the Summer, if we ever used an electric skillet or the electric griddle inside, I always ran the extension cord.

This worked.

My current camper is 50 amp, and last week-end I discovered that plugging in my 1500 watt electric griddle through the outside plug on the camper popped the breaker. But I did have both air conditioners running, the water heater on electric, and the microwave running all at the same time. I went ahead and ran the extension cord and will probably continue doing so when cooking outside.