Surge Protectors or not??

nrkmann wrote:
...Does anyone have a 1st person story ...

When we first purchased our current Outback TT (3 years ago), we purchased a protector at the same time, day of singing the papers. My wife and I discussed this earlier, and considering the dealership gave a discount for anything purchased the day of sale, we stocked up on some of the higher end accessories for the camper. Hype? Well ...???

We took the Outback out for it's maiden voyage, a a State Park campground in Southern Indiana. The weather was horrible hot, we got there in the middle afternoon, the camper was horrible hot inside. Plugged in the power via the protector (pedestal type), and power came on for a split second and then ... dead!

We thinking to ourselves the camper is defective! Brand new, hot as Hades, and about a hundred miles from home! What a way to start out with a new camper.

I had always carried lots of 30 amp extension cord, so decided to try the next campsite over. Plugged into it and "wholla!" Great power! Cooled down the camper, life was great! UNTIL the occupant of that campsite came in and then the other one on the other side came in.

No choice but to call maintenance for the park. After a while they did come out. Found out the breaker was bad, it wasn't tripping, there was an over-voltage in pedestal, and the wires were basically fried inside. It took them a couple hours and by now it was getting dark, but they finally fixed it all. I plugged in with the protector and all was well.

Made me a believer! I keep mine plugged in all the time now. I have a pedestal portable type, but plug it inside the camper and just have have the plug sticking out the camper via the electric plug hole. I use one of the extension cords to plug in from the pole to the camper and inside the camper is the portable protector.

Now, if I've every had a problem in the last 3 years since then, I'd probably never know. It's never shut down again on me again. So maybe it's doing it's job ... sight unseen.