"been in the same park for 2 months. Every time it gets hot and busy here I start busting breakers at the pole. Today The breaker had tripped 3 times. I had reduced An ac each time. When it broke for the third time I turned the generator on and had no problems running everything. 30 mins later when I reset the breaker I got a large oooomph sound from the pole. And the 1 leg had totally melted.. I was on generator power at the time. The park is unsure of why this is happening. I suspect a large voltage drop in the line... After they replaced the plug. We had no power at the pole on the 20 30 0r 50 amp plugs and neither did the spot next to me. They went to the main breaker box and discovered every 2 campsites are on the same circuit.,at the mAin box the breaker has not tripped and still has power but there is none at the 2 poles. My guess is the wire has melted somewhere between the box and the 2 sites? is that possible?
Also wouldnt it be best to have each site on their own circuit? I also read that every other campsite should have leg1 and leg2 reversed . Seems many rv have more on line 1 than 2 . And that difference adds up? Any way you guys are smarter than me. Ideas.
You thoughts on a broken wire are probably correct, but more common is a loose or high resistance connection somewhere between your power poles and the campground distribution panel . The idea of coaches having heavy demand on one hot leg vs the other is strictly random. These are the times that an rv power protector is so important. Having a classic (old Newell) I don't know what is included in a new coach, but something top notch like a Progressive Industries EMS-PT50X. More than a surge protector. It will protect you from low voltage and incorrectly wired systems.
Your on board computers and appliances are at risk with poor electrical power.
The camp ground we are at has "fake" 50 amp service. only one hot leg, one neutral and a ground. They have wired up the breakers on the pedestal to be double pole, but it is only the same 120 led to both sides of the breaker. Nice folks.
If there is power coming out of the main box, confirmed by actual VOM measurement, and the same wires coming into the pole boxes have none, then there is an open somewhere in between. As Guy noted, the most likely place is at a connection. Since two sites are supplied by one wire at the main, somewhere the wire splits into 2. That connection would be my first place to look.
I would expect campgrounds to run multiple sites from one wire because it substantially reduces the amount of wire that is needed to feed the sites. Depending on the campground the number of sites serviced by a single line can vary, the tradeoff being that as more sites are added to a circuit the bigger, and more expensive per foot, the wire needs to be versus running smaller wires more total feet. Where we are vulnerable is when too many sites are serviced by too small a wire and our site volt drops and heating of the wires occurs.
After talking with Marc, it seems the campground has 2 sites running off of one 100 amp breaker at the main service panel. So with only 100 amps feeding 2 50 amp sites (remember that 50 amp service is actually 2 legs at 50 amp each for a total of 100 amps available) there could be a problem if both coaches are pulling 50 amps (100 amps total). That would certainly trip a breaker.
If it's hot and you're running 4 air conditioners, possibly cooking on the Gaggenau electric stove, maybe washing/drying clothes, plus other stuff and your neighbor is pulling a similar load then that 100 amp breaker at the main panel will be overloaded.
Now the question becomes will the wire handle a larger breaker? And will the campground be willing to do something about this?
Well I called Forrest and with his advice and explanation I have deduced the following. This campground has 100amps for every 2 sites. . They just finished an expansion and all 40 of the new sites appear to have the same issue. The interesting issue involves the fix.. They have approximately 12 sub-panels that each run about 12 sites. Each circuit(2 campsites) should be a 200 amp service not a 100 amp service. So if they screwed up only on the size of the breaker in the sub panel, they can just swap to new breakers..But if the wire size is wrong to handle 200 amp they will have to wire to each site individually so redo spout 70 sites. Or pull 200 amp wire through the existing conduit. From my research 100 amp wire is about the size of a pencil. 200 amp is about the size of your finger. It appears to be 100 amp wire.. so I'm betting the electric company that installed this is not going to get a very nice phone call tomorrow.
In the mean time they are not going to park anyone in my adjoining camp site so I have access to all 100 amps. They have been very nice but I would be rather upset if I was the owner.
My guess is the electrical company that installed the service thought that 50 ampService at an rv park meant 25 amps per leg not 50...
Oh a second update, the reason for the no power at the pole but st the main breaker was something very simple.. they had marked the wrong breaker to the wrong sites.. lol
I think it is Richard reminding us to look for the simple first. I need to keep that in mind
