When Your 5'ver is at Home - Do you.........???

[Gooselover]

have it plugged in at home? If so, did you convert where you plug in your fifth wheel to a 50 amp????

I am curious - a regular wall socket in a house - how many amps can be drawn from that?

This is all stemming from DH thinking we need to get an electrician over here to get us a 50amp plug in. Keep in mind we are NOT going to be staying in the coach while at home - maybe a day here or day there just for fun, though.

[therink]

I have a 30amp outlet I installed myself for my rv pad. I have 50 amps in my rv, but 30 is fine to run ac and one other appliance with no issue. We also use rv as guest house.
I have a 6" thick gravel pad as well with large concrete pavers situated where the tires go. Seems to work well for me.

[We_Cant_Wait]

While not a 5th wheel our MH is 50AMP and I have it plugged into a regular circuit in the garage, and it's parked on a gravel base next to the garage. Can't see much difference (other then price) being parked on concrete/pavement/gravel.

[wildtoad]

Gooselover wrote:
We can put our coach next to either side of the house, but DH is thinking "concrete" may be better or some sort of "pad" made out of concrete blocks???

As sad as it may sound, your husband is correct. We have an asphalt driveway and added an area for the MH. Not really well spent money. Should have sprung for concrete.

[RAS43]

Gooselover wrote:
All right! This answers my questions! Thank you! Oh, have one other question - do a lot of you have an RV pad of poured concrete or something else other than just on the "grass"? We can put our coach next to either side of the house, but DH is thinking "concrete" may be better or some sort of "pad" made out of concrete blocks???

Ours is parked next to the house on gravel, which works fine for us. I've thought about a concrete pad which would make maintenance on the rig easier but it is just a wish at this point.

[Gooselover]

Oh, forgive me, I certainly didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with staying in the RV at home! In fact, we have a "back pasture" of about 10 acres with a couple ponds that I WISH we could take the coach back there! Unfortunately, no electric and the RV would be out of site from the house when not in use.

Oh, you bet I will use the 5'ver while plugged here in at the house. Perfect getaway when DH is snoring his brains out! I'll just go to the camper!

[RoyB]

We camp out in our 30AMP 5th wheel all the time plugged into our garage 20AMP service using an adapter.

We can run just about everything in the trailer but have to watch what we have ON at the same time. Air conditioner and microwave are heavy current items for us. I have 50-feet of HD contractor (10-3) extension cords running to the trailers.

Its a great get-away for us. You sounded like it was something wrong by staying in your 5th wheel while in the back yard. We do it all the time here. A great get-away for watching the football games - The grand kids have a blast when sleeping over night... We sleep-over in it ourselves as well...

I only have the Electric hooked up. No water or sewer connected... That is really not so much a problem using the sewer tanks - you can use one of those 12VDC macerator type pumps and pump the sewer to the house septic system very easy.

Kinda of expensive during the winter months keeping the heat going. Goes thru propane like crazy - we normally just have a couple of electric heaters going on half power.

I do the same thing with my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer as well... Always doing mods on it and playing with battery banks etc - It runs just fine connected to the garage 20AMP service receptacle again watching what you have ON at the same time.

Roy Ken

[byrdr1]

I keep my 50amp 5er plugged into a dedicated 30amp circuit full time when its parked at the house. I used a 50a Marinco camper side to 30a plug on the outlet side, cord set.
this was installed when we first had the pop up and could park under the carport and raise it up to load and unload it and I could run AC when it was popped up.
Still use it because of the trouble to run a 50a circuit to the same spot and then I would have to use my nice 50amp cord set with it sitting out of all to see.

[goducks10]

I leave mine plugged in all year. I only have a 15A plug in available. Works good for keeping the batteries topped off and that's about it. The 5'ers not used for anything when not camping so it's not that big of a deal. If I was going to do dedicated line I would go 20A.

[MFL]

I have a concrete pad poured next to the driveway. If you park on the grass, or dirt over a long term, it will cause rust problems on your frame.

Jerry

[Sandia_Man]

Our rig is plugged in 24/7 when stored in our backyard on a 20 amp circuit. No need for 50 amp circuit as we don't camp at home, we're just plugged in to keep batteries topped up and to run fridge a day or two prior to an upcoming trip. We can also dump our tanks as there is a sewer cleanout within a few yards of our RV pad.

[Gooselover]

All right! This answers my questions! Thank you! Oh, have one other question - do a lot of you have an RV pad of poured concrete or something else other than just on the "grass"? We can put our coach next to either side of the house, but DH is thinking "concrete" may be better or some sort of "pad" made out of concrete blocks???

[wildtoad]

While you can run some things off of a 15-20 amp circuit, at some point you will want more. I think you will be better off in the long run getting a dedicated circuit for the FW.

[MFL]

You can draw 15-20 amps from a normal outlet, using an adapter to hook up to the camper. This will allow you to keep the battery charged, run lights, fridge, or other low draw items.

To run AC or other large draw, hubby is right, you will need a larger 30-50 amp service installed.

If he is handy with electrical, he could do this himself, wife being the helper of course.

Jerry

[crickeydog]

We had a dedicated seperate RV 50 amp and seperate RV 30 amp hook-up installed directly adjacent to our RV driveway at our house when we bought our current 5'er 10 years ago. Our 5'er gets plugged in as soon as it's backed in and dropped from a trip. The idea is to keep our 5'er continually plugged into 50 amp service (which we've done for 10 years) and for an additional 30 amp connection for RV visitors to plug in to. We have a 130' stressed concrete RV driveway with sewer and water directly next to our house so we have plenty of room for visitors...sometimes too much room!!! Sometimes we can't get'em to leave!!!

As for plugging into a 15 to 20 amp house socket...yep..it'll work. But yer not gonna be happy with it in time.

We find we use the camper at the house more than we ever expected. It's like having a 5th bedroom. We stayed in it 2 weeks last year while our house was painted. It's kind of become my so-called "man cave" from time to time. Visiting friends like to stay in the camper as a novelty. And, if you're going to run power, it only costs a skosh more to go 1st class and install a 50 amp hook-up. If yer gonna do it, do it right the first time. Just make sure you hire a qualified electrician who's knowledgable in RV electrical connections. We had also to increase our incoming house power panel service from 200 amps to 300 amp service to handle the extra 50 and 30 amp RV hookups to be safe. And of course the city wanted their cut to verify the installation was done to "code". But, do it once correctly and yer done. Good luck.

Happy camping!!! See y'all down the road!!!:)

[tkcas01]

Most house circuits are 15 or 20 amps. You may have multiple receptacles and lights on the same circuit, so you have to consider the total draw, not just what the FW might use. For example, if a fridge or freezer is on the same circuit, that can be a pretty big draw, especially when the compressor first starts up for a cooling cycle.

There are adapters to get you from 20amps to 50 amps, so the plug itself is not an issue.