Electricians question: fridge in underbelly on 30 amp plug

Just wondering if we could run a small 1.6 cu. ft. refrigerator in storage comp. under camper and run the air conditioner also?
I have to only run 1 air conditioner on 30 amp., but I have to turn it off to use my hair dryer and don't want to waste money on the fridge if we can't run it. Most cg's you can only get a 30 amp site, so this will be a majority of the amp's we will have. Not sure it's worth it to buy the fridge.

question2: Will we be able to run the fridge or hair dryer in the fall while having the fireplace or small heater is running?

If I have left some technical info. out for the answers, I am sorry in advance.
Anita

Anita & Wayne:
You seem to understand that your AC electrical consumption is a sum of the electrical loads used. When you have a limited electrical supply, sometimes you have to limit your electrical usage to avoid blowing the master breaker at the campsite electrical pedistal. I have found a link to a chart of RV electrical loads here:
http://www.funroads.com/rv-repair/generators/loadmanagement/ . This is on a generators page, but the load data still applies.
On the air conditioning, hair dryer and extra refrigerator question; this depends on exactly on how much current your extra refrigerator and hair dryer use. I would suspect that your air conditioner and extra refrigerator can be run with other normal loads. They may trip the breaker if they both start up their compressors at the same time, as compressor start-up current can momentarily be 10 times normal running current. Compressor start up during normal operation is a non-predictable event, but can be counted on to happen when the equipment is first turned on.
If you want to try to prevent a circuit breaker trip you can do some preventative "load shedding" before turning on your hair dryer. You can switch your water heater and built-in refrigerator over to propane power temporarily. You can go to the trailer's circuit breaker panel and turn off the 12 volt convertor breaker temporarily (your 12 volt stuff will work fine off of the batteries for a while). Don't run the microwave while you are using the hair dryer.

I hope this helps!

Kind of funny when you consider that the hair dryer running on high setting will pull up to 13 amps. Almost half of your total capacity.

Thanks, it does help. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it so a non-electrician can understand it also.
Thank you so much also for the link.
Anita

The answer to your question is as easy as 'PIE'. P= I x E
P= power in Watts
I= current in Amps
E= Volts
Having a 30 amp service @ 120 volts in theroy that means you can run a max of 3600 watts. (3600 = 30 x120)
You should be fine as the power usage of a refridge like that uses under 150 watts.

What I would do would be to use the 20 amp outlet at the pedistal to run the small refrigerator. By doing this you take the load off the trailer. Now before I get flamed, I understand that some CG only let you use 1 outlet be it be 50 30 or 20amp. So you will need to comply with those rules. Where I'm at I use both the 30 and 20 amp for my 5th wheel, becaus e the site I like doesn't have 50amp. When I was in a 50amp site I used all three for a short time.

You could install a 20amp male outlet on the side of the RV and have a 20amp female inside to plug in the refrigerator and use an extention cord to the from pedistal to that outlet.

Steve, you are my hero. I don't know why I didn't think about that. One more question tho, don't laugh....is a 20 amp a regular plug in, like in the house. LOL

Nita

SLJKansas said:

What I would do would be to use the 20 amp outlet at the pedistal to run the small refrigerator. By doing this you take the load off the trailer. Now before I get flamed, I understand that some CG only let you use 1 outlet be it be 50 30 or 20amp. So you will need to comply with those rules. Where I'm at I use both the 30 and 20 amp for my 5th wheel, becaus e the site I like doesn't have 50amp. When I was in a 50amp site I used all three for a short time.

You could install a 20amp male outlet on the side of the RV and have a 20amp female inside to plug in the refrigerator and use an extention cord to the from pedistal to that outlet.

Click to expand...

Yes. For the exterior outlet to plug the extention cord female end into I would use something like this. http://tweetys.com/3-wireoutdoorreceptacle.aspx I think you can get them from Home Depot and the like, if not a RV parts store will have them. Then just wire a regular outlet box and receptacle inside the bay. Since the pedistal should have a GFI outlet installed you don't need to use one inside, but if you plug into another source, it may not be a bad idea to wire a GFI in the box. Safety first.

I'm no hero, just a dad and a fellow rver. Good Luck

Anita,
The refrigerator will plug right in to the 20A outlet in the park. Its the same as any regular outlet in your house. You may, of course, need a decent outdoor extension cord.

Thanks all.
Bob, I really wanted to be able to close the storage compartment and not have the extension cord hanging out. I may try to find a hole in the underbelly to fit an extension cord thru. It's just hard not being able to use the plug-is that you have right there beside the fridge or tv in the compartment.
But thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

westxsrt10- PIE for a southern girl is PIE= Crust + apples + butter.then bake it ya'll, but thanks for your help. I am just teasing, but the pie thing would take some studying, I am sure electricians or anyone who works on that stuff have to study a lot. I just ask someone here for the answer.......to easy!! then I have some pie!

If you're going to use an ootdoor extension cord for the 20A, don't go cheap. You need one no smaller than 12AWG (higher number means thinner wire = not able to handle load) and you don't want it to be much longer than 25 feet.

Anita,

You can certainly use the existing outlet in basement and it may be fine. Plug-in to 20A outlet at pedestal is just a fall-back if needed.

What was I thinking - 20 + 30 not necessarily equal to 50

Just checked the wiring of the older 30A only sites in the park where I am currently staying. They are, in fact, 30A 120V service. The pedestals have 20A and 30A outlets but each pedestal is fed by a single 30A breaker in the subpanel. One 200A subpanel serves 9 sites.

Not sure if all 30A campground pedestals are really just 30A service, but if yours is, then plugging into both the 20A and 30A outlets gains you nothing.

Re: What was I thinking - 20 + 30 not necessarily equal to 50

branson4020 said:

Just checked the wiring of the older 30A only sites in the park where I am currently staying. They are, in fact, 30A 120V service. The pedestals have 20A and 30A outlets but each pedestal is fed by a single 30A breaker in the subpanel. One 200A subpanel serves 9 sites.

Not sure if all 30A campground pedestals are really just 30A service, but if yours is, then plugging into both the 20A and 30A outlets gains you nothing.

Click to expand...

Check closely... most of the campgrounds that have 30amp service and a 20amp have changed out the 20amp to a GFI so that both cannot be used.

Anita & Wayne:
Re: "One more question tho, don't laugh....is a 20 amp a regular plug in, like in the house?"

Well, to be exact a NEMA* 5-20P plug has the left blade (as viewed face on) horizontal, the right blade vertical, and the round ground pin above the two. The plug and outlet for the Apollo convection/microwave are 20 amp. The standard household plug is a NEMA* 5-15P, with both power blades vertical. The less confusing news is that the usual NEMA* 5-20R recepticle that you find in the campground service pedistal has BOTH horizontal and vertical blade slots, so it will work with either plug, and should be rated to deliver 20 amps.

* NEMA= National Electrical Manufacturers Association