110v options at home

[StephenW]

I need some advice on supplying 110v to a 50amp coach at home and clearly I am not an electrician. Just looking for some ideas.

My existing 240v (7.5 amp on the tag) pool pump was professionally wired using two (2) dedicated 20 amp circuits from two (2) dedicated breakers ( t the 200 amp panel) and there is also a 110v outlet in the pool pump room that draws its power from one of these 20 amp lines. Nothing is plugged into that 110 outlet. Pool pump is 1hp and runs about 6 hours a day.

I intend to park the 50 amp coach about 15 feet from the pump room and was wondering what amp options would be available for the coach from the two 20 amp circuits that are already there without running another line from the panel across the house.

I suspect I would have at least 20 amps by simply plugging into the existing 110v plug, but was wondering if that could be upped to 30 amps or more since there are two 20 amp lines going to the pool pump. I don't expect to need to run both AC's at the same time at home. I am aware that 50 amp needs to be wired differently for RVs vs a dryer, etc. Thanks for the help! Steve

[wa8yxm]

If you plug into the 15 or 15/20 amp outlet in the pump house you will have at the most 20 amps. The pump is 1HP that's about 5 amps at 240 volt (NOTE: not exact, but fairly close, 4-5 is more accurate) adding the motor home may trip the breaker depending on state of charge on batteries (Which controls how much the converter draws) and what you turn on (Water heater or A/C likely will trip it).

The fact there are 2 20 amp lines will not make a difference to the RV less you do some serious re-wiring.. The RV will only use one, and the neutral

if the wire is proper (4 wires, L-1,L-2,Neutral Ground) you may be able to put a 50 amp RV outlet in, this will give your a bit more power since you can split loads between L-1 and L-2, but in practice I'd not recommend this because you still have to be concerned about the pump and the power it draws.. Starting that pump pulls the full 20 amps, and likley more, just the "more" is not long enough to trip the breaker.

With the added load of the RV, it might be.

[twinboat]

All of your wiring, if wired for 20 amps max, is 12 gauge. To get 30 amps you need 10 gauge wiring, so you can't get 30 amp 120 volt service, the way it is now.

50 amp service need 8 or 6 gauge wiring, according to the distance of the run.

As mentioned in the post above, you could install a 50 amp receptcal, but would only be able to draw 20 amps per leg, minus what the pool filter needs.

This may help understand 50 amp service.

[computerguy]

Originally Posted by wa8yxm

If you plug into the 15 or 15/20 amp outlet in the pump house you will have at the most 20 amps. The pump is 1HP that's about 5 amps at 240 volt (NOTE: not exact, but fairly close, 4-5 is more accurate) adding the motor home may trip the breaker depending on state of charge on batteries (Which controls how much the converter draws) and what you turn on (Water heater or A/C likely will trip it).

The fact there are 2 20 amp lines will not make a difference to the RV less you do some serious re-wiring.. The RV will only use one, and the neutral

if the wire is proper (4 wires, L-1,L-2,Neutral Ground) you may be able to put a 50 amp RV outlet in, this will give your a bit more power since you can split loads between L-1 and L-2, but in practice I'd not recommend this because you still have to be concerned about the pump and the power it draws.. Starting that pump pulls the full 20 amps, and likley more, just the "more" is not long enough to trip the breaker.

With the added load of the RV, it might be.

Thing here is IF you (I would say really an electrician) install the RV "50" amp outlet the coach thinks it's plugged into 50 AMP circuit (actually two 50 amp circuits). So if you have an EMS on the coach it probably will not shed any loads (depends on the coach and EMS). You need to control that manually. You need to understand what is on leg 1 and leg 2.
What I am getting at is that you need to be aware it is not plugged into a real 50 amp outlet. In reality you will be plugged into two 20 amp circuits and the full 20 amp on each leg is NOT even available as it is shared with the pool pump). You should not try and run your ACs, water heater, microwave etc. at the same time. The safety obviously is that the breaker will trip if the load on the leg exceeds the rating.

[mtofell]

OP - what do you plan to use on the coach when plugged in? If you're just looking to keep the batteries charged and use some lights and maybe a TV you'd probably be okay with just the 120V outlet shared with the pool pump.

If you're looking to use things like an electric water heater or A/C it's not going to happen.

[Kiawah]

I would want to know what you intend to do with the power in the coach, before giving a recommendation.

If you are intending to fully use the coach when plugged in there (an A/C or two, Mwave, coffee maker, H2O heater, converter charge, refrig, etc), then the current draw will be too much and you'll trip the breakers. I would have an electrician install a new cable. If they installed the pool wiring thru a conduit pipe, they can probably pull new larger gauge wiring, swap the breaker in your house breaker box, and put a drop fro your RV.

IF you are intending to primarily have the coach sit there and plugged in to maintain your batteries, run the refrig, you should be able to make it work.

If it's the latter, then the simple way to do this is to just run an extension cord cord to the unused outlet, and plan to use no more than 10 amps for the coach. Pool pump uses 7.5A of BOTH legs currently, leaving technically 12.5 amps at the outlet for you. You'd plug in a heavy duty extension cord to your coach, put in a 20amp to 30amp adapter, then plug that adapter into a 30amp to 50amp dongle, and plug your coach shorepower cable into that. Turn your converter(charger) configuration setting down to the minimum, which might be 5amps. That tells the converter the maximum current to consume, leaving about 5 amps for the rest of the rv. The 30 amp to 50amp dongle, consolidates both power legs into 1, so it doesn't matter how your coach breakers are wired.

The next possibility is to have an electrician wire a 50Amp 'socket', onto that existing circuit. You won't be able to draw 50 amps on each leg, it's just a convenience for plugging in your shorepower cable. In that scenario you would have available in your coach 10amps on leg 1 of your coach breaker box, and 10amps on leg 2 of your breaker box. I'd still have my converter turned down to minimum(the coach batteries are already charged from driving it, running at a minimum is fine). You'd have to look at how your coach breakers are plugged to know what you could run on the other 10amp leg. You can only draw 10 amps for the devices using power from leg1, and only 10 amps for the devices using power from leg2.

I have a true 50Amp connection for my coach, but only use it when getting the coach ready for a trip, or needing to run the A/C's. Normally I stow the big 50amp shorepower, and just run a heavy duty cord from a 20amp GFCI in my garage out to the coach. I have camped using only a 20amp socket, using care managing elec consumption.....but you won't really be able to do much with only 10 amps.

If you went the route of upgrading the existing pool cable to a 50 amp 240v line, you could run both the pool motor and have 40+ amps on each leg avail for the RV. Need to check with an electrician though for possible local electrical code restrictions. There may be some specific restrictions on pool/pond/water circuits.

Don't know the exact pump you have, but looking at a couple 1hp 240 volt motors they're up there in the 6.5 to 8.0 amp range of normal running current, so that 7.5 on the motor is probably a really good planning assumption. You could put an ampmeter on that circuit to measure the actual current, but I wouldn't expect it to be much different.

[StephenW]

I'm the OP and this is exactly the info I was looking for. Keeping the batteries charged and turning on the refer the night before we leave is my intended power usage. Not worried about hot water and if I need short term A/C, I can run the generator. Additionally, I do have the option of temporarily turning off the pool pump or just running it at a different time with the timer. The idea of turning the charger down to 5 amps looks like a good option. Thank you so much for the help. I've been lurking for about a year and continue to be amazed at what a great resource this is and how helpful the members are. Steve

[Kiawah]

You don't mention specifics about your coach, refrig, and converter, so I can only speculate and offer my stats.

My refrig draws 1 amp when the compressor is running and it's cooling. However periodically if it goes into defrost mode, the compressor motor turns off and the heating elements turn on to melt ice on the coils. At that point in time, it will draw 8 amps.

I always(well almost always) have my max converter usage turned down to the minimum. If I'm driving somewhere the house batteries get fully charged by the engine alternator. If I get somewhere and plug in, the batteries are already charged and just need a minimum to cover any 12v usage that I'm using. The only time when I shift the converter from the minimum up to the maximum, is when I have to use the generator while boondocking somewhere. In that case, you want the converter to charge the batteries as fast as possible, so that the time the generator needs to run is minimized.

I put in some extra house batteries and we rarely are standing still for a couple days at a non-powered location where I have to run the genny. So for all practical purposes I just leave my config setting at the minimum. Once last year up near Canada we were at a state park for a couple days that had zero electricity and we'd schedule the genny.