We’ve stayed in Stephen F Austin State Park ten different times for a total of 16 nights. On one of our visits during the summer of 2012, the owner of a large fancy class A diesel pusher complained to us that her power pedestal melted down and the park wasn’t able to move her to a different site. She went on to say that the meltdown happened when she plugged both her 30 amp and 50 amp cords into the power pole. After all, the power pedestal had both a 30 and 50 amp circuit and she was an important engineer who worked at an oil company.
Other than that one time, I have never heard of an 80 amp motorhome. That isn’t to say that 80 amp motorhomes don’t exist.
Since the blown up power pedestal incident, we started monitoring the voltage at Stephen F Austin State Park. Our Good Governor AC Line Monitor/Polarity Tester is 20 years old and no longer sold. Another AC Line Monitor/Polarity Tester (without frequency testing capability) being sold on Amazon is the Prime Products AC Line Monitor/Polarity Tester.
To monitor the RV voltage, we plug the AC Line Monitor into any outlet and it just works. Our plan was to manually turn off the power if or when the power dropped below 110 Volts AC.
The old Circle Bar RV Park located roughly 10 miles east of Ozona Texas was notorious for improperly grounded power pedestals (you get zapped when you touch them) and pedestals with no power at all. On more than one occasion, we had to switch sites to get a power pedestal with power.
With retirement, we are traveling more which naturally exposes us to more funky park electrical problems. We need an automatic voltage monitor that will turn off the input electricity whenever shore power goes too high, goes too low or where the wiring is wrong.
We bought the Technology Research Surge Guard 34830 Portable Model with LCD Display – 30 Amp from Camping World in New Braunfels Texas.
When first plugged into a power pedestal, the surge guard tests the wiring and begins a 180 second count down. During the 180 seconds, the surge guard monitors the line for any voltage anomalies. When everything is OK, voltage wise, power is passed through to the RV. If anything untoward happens to the input power, like a lightning strike or a brownout, the surge guard cuts the power before damage can be done to the RV’s systems.
These device come in different power ratings (30/50 amp) as well as different wiring configurations (inline plugin or hard wired internal to the RV).
While we haven’t been hit by lightning or been in a brownout, as we move toward full time RVing, we are likely to experience some sort of shore power mishap over the next ten years. Cheap insurance for having to scrap an RV with melted wiring.
Hope to see you on the road ahead!