Can I hook up to a house from a 30A plug to a 15A circuit

[86CoachmanR]

I have an 1986 30A class A and am a full time RV'er and have been on campgrounds regularly but recently have been "Driveway mooching" with family.

My question is this, with the 30A male dogtail connected to a 30A female to 15A male adapter, can I safely plug into a 15A outlet with this setup?

I'm only looking to run a small LED LCD Monitor, a 120v Electric space heater PlayStation 4, Desktop computer, and the interior lights. Not all at the SE time of course. At most the monitor will be operating with either the computer on or the game system and maybe one lightbulb on.

I've had the motorhome plugged into aunt's house on a 15A garage circuit with the space heater, monitor, game system, and 1 light on at the same time for about 3 weeks. She is moving so I'm hopping over to another family members driveway. However they are concerned with running the 30A to 15A adapter plug through their circuit saying that it will cause a fire.

If I've done this at one house already, with no issues, no trips or anything, is it safe to say that I will not run into any issues here? By the way this scenario is running off of a split circuit board not the main one.

Thanks in advance, sorry for the lengthy post!

[2012Coleman]

howdy35 wrote:
Why don't you and this "Pro" electrician just go to the box and put in an accessory 30 amp RV outlet. Problem solved and it will not cost much money. I have done that at least 3 times at my kids house. Lowes has all the parts.

This will help everyone feel better about the situation and you can run pretty much what you need to run. Good luck with your situation.

Bingo! Both the OP and his step father seem to have the knowledge to either do this, or just replace the sketchy breaker on the circuit he's plugging into. Landlord won't know the difference.


So - did you get the "real" electrician out yet?

[Jim_Norman]

The short answer is YES, you can use an adapter and plug your 30A into a 15A. We've gone a step further and plugged our 50A through 2 adapters to a 15A. BUT you have to watch, no AC, o microwave.

The answer is a 30 amp circuit with the proper outlet. How yiu achieve that depends on what you are starting with.

[CraneMan]

For all the electrical worries, just replace the panel. A Square D 200 amp panel set will run from a little over $100 to a bit over $200 including several breakers. A few extra 15 amp breakers are less than $5 each. An hour and a half and problem solved forever. It's not a difficult job.

[86CoachmanR]

AllegroD wrote:

86CoachmanR wrote:
I have the 30A RV Dogtail plugged into a 30A RV extension cord, plugged into a 120V 15A dogbone RV extension, and am about to plug that into the 15A wall socket in the house. All good???

Yes.

And lo and behold, the house is not burning down lol

THANKS FOR THE HELP!!

[AllegroD]

86CoachmanR wrote:
I have the 30A RV Dogtail plugged into a 30A RV extension cord, plugged into a 120V 15A dogbone RV extension, and am about to plug that into the 15A wall socket in the house. All good???

Yes.

[86CoachmanR]

I have the 30A RV Dogtail plugged into a 30A RV extension cord, plugged into a 120V 15A dogbone RV extension, and am about to plug that into the 15A wall socket in the house. All good???

[AllegroD]

86CoachmanR wrote:

AllegroD wrote:
As other have said, you can do this but there is a risk of using too much and causing a brown out. What that does is is when voltage drops below 105 volts. Some things are not affected by that low voltage, like a space heater. Many appliances are. Extension cords and hockey puck adapters can be affected. They can over heat and cause fires.

I would get a Kill-A-Watt and not go below 105 volts.

Yea, I've read that too, however I'm opting out of using the electrical heater, and will only be interested the RV when I need to use the computer or feel like using the game console, and as far as sleeping goes, well, I have lots of blankets. So far with just the monitor, one overhead light and the console running at the same time it comes to 2.96amps so estimated 5amps maybe 6amps max to account for trickle charge and other background "parasite" components. Would that cause a dip in voltage? I'm trying to keep the distance as low as possible. To get the most voltage pushed.

You can use your space heater. I'd say most RV owners have. Watching consumption is important. Now I mentioned an extension cord over heating, I was referring to a house type or even small yard type. Not built with heavy gauge for heavy use. Sorry if I did not provide enough description. An RV extension cord should be of adequate size to handle all upto the 15A CB popping. The low voltage and CB popping is not caused by the heater alone but everything using elec, converter, fridge, WH, and even the freezer in the garage or electric smoker, if plugged into the same house gang.

[86CoachmanR]

Canadian Rainbirds wrote:

tropical36 wrote:

I think for making everyone happy in a hurry, I would just get myself and inline box with a single pole 15 or 20 amp breaker installed or make it up yourself and then plug this into the outlet.

Best suggestion yet. In fact, since your load is so low, you could use a 10A breaker.

Yea I've suggested this too, but he still thinks that the 30A system , regardless of the load, will burn the house down. I've never had an issue boondocking before, it's never been this complicated, however, he is just giving me a hard time because he's a paranoid type, and well, to be honest he doesn't really have much say in the matter considering he is not on the lease, I'm just doing this to be respectful, but last night I showed him all this and everyone on here apparently is wrong wrong wrong, so, I'm just going to plug in today via 30a to 15a dogtail and use propane.

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP!!! THIS FORUM IS AMAZING!

CrCr, and Canadian Rainbirds, thanks A lot for the suggestions too!!!

[Canadian_Rainbi]

tropical36 wrote:

I think for making everyone happy in a hurry, I would just get myself and inline box with a single pole 15 or 20 amp breaker installed or make it up yourself and then plug this into the outlet.

Best suggestion yet. In fact, since your load is so low, you could use a 10A breaker.

[tropical36]

86CoachmanR wrote:

DrewE wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

It is best to add up all the items and keep the wattage below 1440 on a single 15 amp circuit. I can't imagine the loads you want to run being more than about 800 watts. That would include 325 watts for the fridge.

30 amps should trip the breaker. It would be easy to test that by deliberately turning on items.

In general, testing a breaker this way should be okay.

In the particular case of FPE stab-loc breakers, this is not a wise idea at all. Repeated use is one of the things that causes them to fail (apparently the contacts tend to weld themselves together or something similar). The recommendations I've seen have been to not test them and even to avoid cycling them manually. At least sometimes when damaged, the handles on the breakers are not a good indication of whether they're closed or not--the handle can be off, but the electricity still connected.

I must say I'm glad I don't have to deal with an FPE panel in my house.

Yea, I can't believe this house has FPE still, my mother says she thinks the property owner has the inspector in his pocket because it's been inspected and they "pass" it.

I think for making everyone happy in a hurry, I would just get myself and inline box with a single pole 15 or 20 amp breaker installed or make it up yourself and then plug this into the outlet.

[Canadian_Rainbi]

We do it at home all the time: short term in the driveway from the garden shed where I put in a 30A outlet fed from a 15Amp breaker so I can avoid the 30 to 15 dogbone. Up where we store the rig we go from 50 to 30 dogbone and then 30 to 15 dogbone to an outlet on the well pumphouse. This outlet is fed from the same shed (different 15A circuit) with a few hundred feet of #8 cable. There is a lot of voltage drop when drawing much current but we only use it to keep the batteries charged and one mild winter it was OK with a 10 Amp electric fan forced heater. (Voltage down to just under 110.)

Keep within the load limits and no long thin extension cords. Watch the voltage.

[crcr]

86CoachmanR wrote:

crcr wrote:

86CoachmanR wrote:

crcr wrote:
We've safely done it many times in our RV driveway next to the house when cleaning up or loading up our TT. The 15/20 amp circuit has no problem running the AC, though once DW started running the vacuum cleaner while the AC was on and tripped the circuit breaker. I asked her not to run anything else when the AC is on.

Just be smart, as someone said, don't use an electric space heater, use your built in propane heater for heat. And if running the AC, don't run anything else extra at the same time.

Also, do NOT use a household or even a construction type extension cord. Go from the RV power cord to the dogleg adapter to the 120V outlet. If you need an extension cord to reach power, buy an RV extension cord. I always carry one of those in the RV anyway.

Everything ive read so far says that a 10G extension cord is more than sufficient, ive never read anything about an RV Specific cord. Im just curious as to the difference, I can google it but would rather get your personal experience on the matter. Also, If the space heater i running at half of max 1500W power, is that really an issue? Im just trying to wrap my head around the details as the wiring diagrams included with the RV are a bit out of my league of understanding. Thanks again for the fast replies!!

Here are several 30 amp RV extension cords on Amazon. CLICKY
They are the same heavy gauge as your RV power cord, and have the same 30 amp male and female ends.

Only problem is that where the driveway is and my dogtail is this extension won't reach the power outlet, it's hard to find the 30amp female to 15amp male extension cord longer than a foot or two, I need approximately 6 to 8 more foot of wire to reach the outlet. I'm having rouble finding an RV extension that long :h

Most of those RV extension cords at the Amazon link are 25', and they are 30 amp female to 30 amp male, thus they very simply just extend your standard RV 30 amp power cord. Thus you plug the RV extension cord to your RV power cord, then plug your 30 amp female to 15 amp male dogleg into the female 30 amp end on your RV extension cord. Then plug your dogleg into the household outlet.

[86CoachmanR]

DrewE wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

It is best to add up all the items and keep the wattage below 1440 on a single 15 amp circuit. I can't imagine the loads you want to run being more than about 800 watts. That would include 325 watts for the fridge.

30 amps should trip the breaker. It would be easy to test that by deliberately turning on items.

In general, testing a breaker this way should be okay.

In the particular case of FPE stab-loc breakers, this is not a wise idea at all. Repeated use is one of the things that causes them to fail (apparently the contacts tend to weld themselves together or something similar). The recommendations I've seen have been to not test them and even to avoid cycling them manually. At least sometimes when damaged, the handles on the breakers are not a good indication of whether they're closed or not--the handle can be off, but the electricity still connected.

I must say I'm glad I don't have to deal with an FPE panel in my house.

Yea, I can't believe this house has FPE still, my mother says she thinks the property owner has the inspector in his pocket because it's been inspected and they "pass" it.

[DrewE]

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

It is best to add up all the items and keep the wattage below 1440 on a single 15 amp circuit. I can't imagine the loads you want to run being more than about 800 watts. That would include 325 watts for the fridge.

30 amps should trip the breaker. It would be easy to test that by deliberately turning on items.

In general, testing a breaker this way should be okay.

In the particular case of FPE stab-loc breakers, this is not a wise idea at all. Repeated use is one of the things that causes them to fail (apparently the contacts tend to weld themselves together or something similar). The recommendations I've seen have been to not test them and even to avoid cycling them manually. At least sometimes when damaged, the handles on the breakers are not a good indication of whether they're closed or not--the handle can be off, but the electricity still connected.

I must say I'm glad I don't have to deal with an FPE panel in my house.