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Hey Y’all
On an upcoming trip, friends have offered to let us camp for a week on their property.
The nearest outdoor electrical outlet is 150 ft away.
My question is, can I attach my big hook up cord to a regular outdoor extension cord using a reducer, and be safe and run lights, fridge etc over that distance.
I do have a reducer plus surge protector.
All input appreciated.
Thanks
Terry & Judy Smith
Meaford
OntarioPosted: 9:19 AM – May 24, 2014I would use propane for water heater and fridge. Your surge protector should keep you safe.Posted: 9:50 AM – May 24, 2014Ditto on you should be ok IF you use one long run of wire or extension cord. Probably best is 150 -200 foot roll of 14 gauge romex. Yes use propane for frig and water heat. No ac and no heaters or even fans unless they are 12 volt. Maybe a fan is ok. Try it after your charger has settled down from recharging batteries during Bigfoot setup. At that distance and line loss it won’t take much to overload an otherwise used land circuit, so try to pick one that is not used by much by the main house. Remember, 150 feet is more than twice the length of a normal hours circuit. You are adding 150 feet onto a circuit that could be quite long so household extension cords simply will not do wellWhen your charger needs to go full tilt to keep up with Bigfoot draw it may pop the land circuit breaker. So be sure you still have 120 volts after you set up. If not, just reset the house breaker. You should be fine after that.
If you are thinking of doing this frequently, you might investigate if there is room in the panel for a dedicated 20 amp circuit breaker – that would get about 15 usable to your 5er. Wire to run more amps or 220 volts that distance costs a lot more, but it and the plugs and receptacles are all readily available at an electric supply house or home Depot etc.
Posted: 10:29 AM – May 24, 2014Right now we are staying at my sisters front yard and we are about 150 feet to 110. Running off propane and 12 volt, we’ll be here four days. I just bought a new 50 amp cord for the trailer so I have the two 50 amp and one 30 amp cord running to their house, so far working great.Posted: 11:53 AM – May 24, 2014TSmith1948 wrote:
Hey Y’all
On an upcoming trip, friends have offered to let us camp for a week on their property.
The nearest outdoor electrical outlet is 150 ft away.
My question is, can I attach my big hook up cord to a regular outdoor extension cord using a reducer, and be safe and run lights, fridge etc over that distance.
I do have a reducer plus surge protector.
All input appreciated.
Thanks
Terry & Judy Smith
Meaford
OntarioRunning multiple extension cords that distance can be risky business. Here is a link to a good read on extension cords and starting voltage and voltage drops.
Chip
Posted: 9:21 AM – May 27, 2014The big question is how much power are you getting from that outlet. We all seem to be assuming that is a normal 110-115 v outlet. If that’s the case, with that long of a run you will get some loss and will get minimum power into your rig. When I have done this at my brother-in-law’s place, I have run the water and fridge on propane and used minimal lights, etc. When we needed more (microwave, AC, etc) I hooked up my two Honda generators as though I was dry camping.Last year, with the help of a neighbor who was a retired electrician we put a 30 amp RV plug on the side of his tool shed and now I hook up to that. Some in-laws are real nice!
Posted: 10:13 AM – May 27, 2014At Escapee Escapade boot camp they highly recommended ac-voltage meter.
Plugs into any 120-volt receptacle for continuous monitoringPosted: 8:30 AM – May 28, 2014
thanks to all for the solid advice.
I’m going with a quality 14 gauge extension which I’ll use for the light weight stuff.
BIG BONUS— A good friend who does a lot of boondocking has volunteered the use of his 3ooo watt Honda generator.
We were thinking of buying a genie but didn’t want to fork out the cash until we were absolutely sure it was the way to go.
Now we get to “try before we buy”.
Fellow RV’ers are the greatestPosted: 1:10 PM – May 28, 2014If your going to run off of a Honda 3000 inverter generator you are going to want a Generator Adapter 3 Prong Twist-Lock to 50 amp RV to get the most out of the generator. It will work much better than just plugging into the 20 amp plug on the genny. Here is a link to one.
http://www.rvwholesalers.com/catalog/ge … A1VGvD_BwEHere is another one available through Home Depot.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rodale-1-ft- … /202669077Also I would just skip the 14 gauge cord and get a 12 gauge.
ChipPosted: 7:03 PM – May 28, 2014150 feet. I would go with 10 gauge.Lillyputz
Posted: 9:29 PM – May 28, 2014After reviewing Chip’s files versus my guesstimate, I would say bigger (a smaller gauge number) is better than 14.B.W.Gentry
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