Need some advice from an electrical expert

The facts relating to my problem are as follows:
My wife and I stayed at the Hi-Road Zion RV campground outside Zion national park in our RV on the nights of 17,18 and 19. June 2019. On arrival at the campground on the 17th, we checked in with the front desk lady, drove to the assigned RV site and connected the RV to the hook-ups as usual. Immediately on connecting to the 50 Amp power, there was a sparking sound, a strong smell of electrical burning, and our microwave burnt out. My wife went to the office to ask if there was anything wrong with the power, and was told ?Oh you shouldn?t be using the 50 Amp connection, didn?t anyone tell you (they didn?t)?. She was then told by the office that my e-mail confirmation of the reservation had included a statement that only 30 Amp was provided (the e-mail confirmation had no such statement). She later checked the Internet information, from where we had the link to Hi-Road, and it clearly stated 30 Amp and 50 Amp available. I checked the other RV sites on the campground and many had the 50 Amp connector taped off with duct tape. Ours did not.
The owner of the campground, Erika McLaws, graciously accepted responsibility for the problem and agreed to replace the microwave.
Following the burnout, the Hi-Road maintenance man put large notices on all the RV sites saying 30Amp only, and disclaiming the campground from any responsibility in the event of damage from the 50Amp connector.
On leaving Hi-Road, we travelled to Page in Arizona, where we found that the forward air conditioner was also not working. The problem was investigated by RV Country in Flagstaff and they confirmed that the air conditioner had suffered the same damage as the microwave. We informed Erika. Both the microwave and the air conditioner were finally repaired in Yuma Arizona, and we submitted copies of the bills to Erika with a request for reimbursement.
The response from Erika and her husband Todd was to deny responsibility and claim that the 50 Amp circuit could not have been to blame. Obviously we could not accept this.
For two weeks, all attempts to contact Erika were unsuccessful. Calls to her personal phone forwarded to a voicemail which was always full and could accept no further messages. E mails were not answered. Messages left at the campsite were not answered. Finally, on 12. July we received another e-mail from Erika and her husband fully rejecting our claim for reimbursement. We must evidently take further action to achieve settlement.

Part of the campground's argument is that there is nothing wrong with their 50Amp circuit, they just decided not to use it for some reason and only offer 30Amp (although the 50Amp connectors are still in place. They say they have had someone come in and check that the power at the site I was at is "normal". It could be that under ideal conditions the circuit measures normal, but obviously it wasn't normal when my microwave and a/c burned out. I need to get smart on what can possibly happen to a circuit which is disused for a long time and is in any case relatively dilapidated. I note that in 2018 there was a review comment on power fluctuations at the campsite causing problems. If there is a power outage or electro-magnetic climate activity, can there be a build up of latent energy which could cause the damage I suffered. Any advice or links to information which would be helpful would be appreciated.

Alternating current power outlets don't "build up" anything. They are either properly wired and powered or not.  It sounds very much as though there was a defective neutral wire on the outlets or its feeder circuit, leading to a condition known as "floating neutral". That causes the voltage in the RV to rise or fall, often well beyond acceptable ranges and damaging appliances.

You are probably going to need an engineer and a lawyer if the campground owner denies responsibility.  Alternatively, file a claim with your own insurer and let them sort it out.

This sounds like you have a pretty good case against the park. The fact that they agreed to take responsibility for the microwave and were putting out information about not using the 50amp outlets, is a pretty good indicator that they were having a problem with the 50amp outlets. The other indicator is that they mysteriously decided that the outlet problem could not have damaged the air conditioning unit even though they pretty much admitted that the microwave was damaged buy the outlet and agreed to replace it.


Put as much pressure on the camp as possible. Your insurance company will communicate directly with the camp free of charge in most cases. The camp may ultimately agree to compensate you for the damages. If they do not, consider filing a small claims case against the camp and the operators.


My other suggestion would be to thoroughly check any camp pedestal before plugging in. It will not guarantee safe power 100% of the time but can identify many problems before you plug in. The link below is helpful in identifying good and bad pedestals before plugging in and offers a method to keep you safe while plugged in. Good Luck.

https://www.rvtravel.com/rv-electricity-pedestal-power-checklist/

I've seen nothing mentioned so far about the use of a quality EMS system for the camper.  It's obviously too late now to prevent the damage that has occurred, but it would serve very well for any future issues and very likely prevent electrical damage the next time.  It's hard to beat the Progressive Industries EMS systems.

I concur with Gary, very likely an issues with the neutral wire which can cause voltages to read 240 volts instead of the expected 120 volts

First things first, file a claim with the BBB.  That and the possibility of poor reviews on several sites are often enough to move the owner on the issue.

When business starts to dry up because the campground has bad reviews for faulty wiring, they will be forced to fix the issue.

I do agree that an EMS like the Progressive INdustries HW-50-C may well have solved this dilemma before it became a dilemma but that is not the issue here.

THe issue here is there was indeed something wrong with the 50 amp outlet. Though it was not mentioned in the confirmation E-mail (you checked) and there was no lock out on the 50 amp breakers nor was there a notice.. anywhere.. But the fact the clerk told you ?h there was a notice in the E-mail means they knew about it.. I can likely even tell you what the issue was (But of course itś too late to check now

Normal outlet wiring

L1 n l2
How the park was wired
N l1 l2 or  l1 l2 N

This would make the 30 amp outlet 120 volt just like it is suppose to be and 1/2 (Rear A/C half) of the 50 amp proper but the other side woudl be 240 volts.

Happned in one park I visited  The Power company replaced a failed transformer  The box was wired

L1
L2
Neutral

They hooked it up
L1
Neutral
L2

OPPS put half the park on 240 volts. 

Thank you all for the great responses. They are much appreciated.

Just to bring you up to speed. I have filed a complaint with the Utah Better Business Bureau. I have listed the same description of my experience (as was used here) on several review sites, trying to be fair and honest, and I have my insurance  company (Progressive) working on the issue. I will post results once there are any.

Thanks again, really appreciated

Gary was right. The owners have now been advised by an insurance broker named Jaron Hunt of Leavitt Group Insurance agency in St George Utah, and have decided to claim their pedestals were in perfect working order, and if we cannot prove otherwise, they are denying my claim. They further state that the only reason they currently offer only 30Amp service is their choice, not a problem, and the letter I received from their front desk promising to reimburse for the damage, was obtained under my pressure from their employee (Aja Woolley), who wasn't authorized to sign. This last is completely false. I even questioned Aja if she was the right person to sign, and she said don't worry, the owners (Erika and Todd McLaws) are honorable people.

I also discovered that the Hi-Road Zion campground website has now been taken down, and that the campground as well as the Hi-Road Basecamp actually belong to the Zion Mountain Ranch, which appears to be the legal entity.

Fortunately I retained the burnt-out part from the microwave clearly showing the damage. Now I just need an expert to look at it and give an expert opinion.

Unfortunately, I don't think the burned part will help your case, unless you have something further to prove the overvoltage condition happened at that park and not somewhere else.  The insurance company has already rejected the evidence you provided.

You need to decide if the damage is enough to pursue a legal claim against the campground, with all of it's accompanying time and expense.  Or just let it go and chalk it up to experience.

IMO.
What if the OP plugged into a 50 AMP live circuit?
The 50 Amp breaker should always be off before the 50 Amp male plug is inserted, OP did not mention breakers........
If the L1 and L2 make contact before the Neutral in a live circuit ...  poof
JMO

Yes, I think I want to follow this up. It would not be right to let the campground get away scot free. Yes, the insurance company has advised them to go the dishonorable way. The owners accepted at the beginning that the problem was theirs. No doubt there will be effort and cost on the side of the campground which will be a factor for them. I'll keep the forum posted.

For those of you who are following this, these are the two answers received from the husband (Todd) of the campground owner (Erika). This first one from Todd himself:
We feel we have not clearly explained the power issues at Hi-Road campground, and wish to do so now. When we received the email that said that the power failures were caused by a surge we were alarmed. We have never had any problems with surges. If we did receive a surge, it is not something we have control of as our voltage is determined solely by the power company. By the time it makes it to our panel the voltage is set to two legs of 120 volts. There is simply no way for us to change voltage we receive. Furthermore, if there is a surge, it will affect the 30 amp service exactly the same as the 50 amp because it all runs from the same panel and same wire. We are simply not responsible for a change in voltage if one does occur.
I am sure you wonder why the blame went to the 50 amp service at all, if it is indeed the same power as the 30 amp service.  There is an issue with our 50 amp plugs which I will explain, but it does not change voltage or cause a surge. The problem with our 50 amp service is a simple problem of capacity. When too many of our 50 amp services are being used it draws too much amperage. This trips the master breaker and then everyone?s power goes out. When we attempt to flip it back on it simply trips again unless someone unplugs. It?s the exact same situation as if you plug too many things into your kitchen outlets. When a breaker trips in your home, you unplug something so less power is consumed allowing you to then flip the breaker back on successfully. To ease the guest frustration of having the breakers trip, we decided to have everyone use the less power consumptive 30 amp service. This limits everyone?s power to avoid the problem of tripping the master breaker.
Where we are to blame, is that we did not sufficiently instruct our staff to know why we do not use the 50 amp service. Staff training is our responsibility, and it is the reason for the signed paper. For this reason, we will go ahead and fix the microwave as agreed upon, regardless of fault. As far as the other problems with the AC, or otherwise, we are not obligated to fix them. If there was a problem with a power surge you will need to talk to the power company. They should have plenty of documentation of any voltage changes in our area. 

This second one after Todd talked to his insurance broker:
We have sought help concerning your request to repair your rig, and have received advice to establish that Hi-Road Campground has no liability for any repairs your rig might need. As we explained before in our previous email, we have no control over the voltage we receive from the power company to our property. We have had someone come out and look at the power supply at the site you rented, and he verified that the voltage was correct. (117.8 volts for one leg and 117.9 volts for the other leg)  He also verified that we are protected from over current, (power surges) with the appropriate size breaker.
The paper that Aja signed will not hold up, as Aja is not a manager or owner, and did not have permission or authority to sign the document. You put pressure on her to sign it, and confrontation gives her anxiety, so she did so. She is a valuable employee, but did not have authority to sign it on behalf of our company.

If anyone has comments on the technical credibility of the statements, they would be appreciated. You will note the implied quality of the campground in Todd's description differs greatly from the actual quality which I described in my original problem description.
What we have been told is that the camp is under new ownership this year, but honestly the camp is in pretty poor condition and I would be very surprised if any maintenance has been done before or after the takeover. The campground seems to be an afterthought to the two main operations, the Zion Mountain Ranch and the Hi-Road Basecamp. The major activity seems to be operating a large laundry for the Basecamp and Ranch (the front desk for the campground is in the laundry, and the lass managing the front desk does the laundry as her major job). The location, just outside the Zion park is excellent, but the price is high and the ratings very low. I am guessing the campground is being run as a cash cow. One thing for me to check is who was the previous owner. It seems possible to me that the campground was taken over to be used as the laundry for the other two operations, and that the 50Amp circuit may have been repurposed to serve the laundry. This would provide a more plausible explanation why the 50Amp service for RVs was discontinued. provide an opportunity for introducing wiring problems. Lack of maintenance could have led to problems with the neutral lead on the pedestal I plugged into. One thing is certain, the damage occurred instantly when I plugged in, but unfortunately the witness is my wife who was standing about a yard from the microwave when I plugged in, and insurance companies usually don't respect wives' information.

If what Todd states us true, it could be decided in Todd's favor however, the fact that the camp has an electrical service that is not engineered  to handle the projected load and wasn't clearly labeled or communicated, would shed suspicion on the campground. Couple of things to investigate would be....

1) what are the electrical effects to appliances that are hooked up to a service that is not engineered to handle the designated load

2) what are the affects to appliances on the circuit when a main supply breaker has tripped and someone is flipping it back on.

Have you had your a/c repaired and have you replaced the microwave?

I like what Harvard mentioned up there... it does make some sense.

There is also the possibility of a wiring problem inside the motorhome, like a damaged lead or plug.

The campground's explanation makes some sense - whether it's true or not is another matter but it's a defensible position. I think one could make the argument that if they had an (under)engineering problem, and taped off the 50a receptacles except one, maybe a previous visitor removed the tape to use it. Given the receptacles were "mostly taped off" and the previous visitor didn't report a failure (regardless of whether it was used or not), I think you'd have a hard time proving negligence. No pattern had been established. Somewhat related, I pretty much guarantee you released them of liability for damage to equipment resulting from use of facilities when you signed in... even nice hotels make you agree to that.

Regardless, the next step would be having a professional execute repairs and document discoveries made along the way. Once there's a dollar number and a broad explanation (internal vs. external) you go back to the park and ask to be reimbursed, then file a suit if it seems worth it. Of course, you could always file a claim with your insurance and they will surely attempt to subrogate it.

Not enough information to know if the system is "poorly engineered" or simply overloaded.  Is your kitchen at home poorly engineered just because you can't plug in a crock pot and an electric fry pan at the same time without tripping a breaker?  There will always be some limit to capacity, and no campground (or hotel for that matter) promises infinite electric power. At most a customer might be due a refund if the advertised service is unavailable.

Nor is there sufficient information to know whether the tripped breaker is the only effect of the potential power overload.  Excessive amperage will indeed trip a breaker, but it may in some circumstances also cause voltage fluctuations.  However, there is only conjecture that this might be the case.

Further, there are possible shortcomings in the campground wiring that can effect voltage, so Todd is at best being ingenuous when he claims that only the power utility can change voltage.  Some examples are insufficient wire size, open or damage neutral wire connections, and high resistance wire connections.  I'm not claiming any of these exist, but they are possible problems that would be the responsibility of the campground.

Last, the insurer statement is irrelevant. Of course they favor disavowing any liability - they would have to pay if the campground admitted liability.  The insurer's opinion is good only as long as there are no facts.

While on the subject of facts vs conjecture, I have to also state that there are no hard facts showing that the failure of returnee's microwave and a/c were caused by campground power problems.  All we know is that the problem arose while at Hi Road Zion. Correlation is not proof of causation. Suspicious, to be sure, but not proof.

Comparing a residential circuit design to a commercial design would not be a fair comparison as they follow very different standards. It wouldn't matter whether it was originally engineered improperly or was later overloaded. An evaluation of both those circumstances at this level require an engineering review in a commercial setting. It may have been that someone not qualified to either design, work on, or modify the system played a roll in the 50 amp outlet issue. It could also be workmanship or connection problems. Lots of possibilities but the key is that it has nothing to do with the user and that the problem appears to be connected to the damaged appliances.


What I find most interesting is that the poster was told that all the 50 amp outlets were not to be used. That seems awfully odd. Why would they shut down all of the outlets when common sense would signal to just limit the use?

People can't be trusted. If there was the potential for a problem - any problem - the better course of action is to discontinue use rather than hope people self-moderate... because they won't. Even if no damage is likely to result, the customer service issue quickly becomes a nightmare. If the campground was having problems supporting all the end points, it's just more reliable to tell everyone to stop entirely. It's certainly what I'd do.

If you are including the staff as "people" I would maybe agree but would still have many questions. Maybe it was implemented to the daily camper or short stay. Assuming they have longer term campers. The website being taken down doesn't look good either. Maybe they couldn't figure out how to change the electrical service options on the website and just shut the hole thing down. Lets see if it comes back online.

Speaking from professional experience, the course of events right now is likely employee talk to owners, owners talked to insurance, insurance's legal contacted owners, website was taken down since it was definitely a point of ambiguity. Combined with the "our receptacle wasn't taped off" observation, this is a defensive move. I've been involved in enough scenarios to recognize that.

I am speaking from experience when I say the thing an attorney would recommend in this situation is to have the damage professionally repaired first. The common term is "make yourself whole." Once that's done, have that professional render an opinion and then go back to the owners or their insurance. If a professional can wag a finger and there is a number associated with being made whole, insurance will become more compliant. It wouldn't hurt to have an attorney (family friend, whatever) be the originator of that contact. "Provable damages" + "attorney" will perk up an insurance company. Without at least a professional opinion and a formal bill, insurance's answer will pretty much always be no. Maybe understandably so... insurance fraud ("Your broken thing cost me $1,000,000! No, it definitely wasn't damaged before!") is real.

(And don't for a second think if the owners "do the right thing" and accept liability that their insurance will lift a finger... unless the owners intend to pay out of pocket insurance will fight it. For a microwave, an owner would probably do just that - but for extensive damage they probably simply don't have the money to. Once insurance is involved, they are typically your agent and act more or less autonomously. You can't make your insurance company write a check... to you or anyone!)

According to the poster, he did have the repairs made and sent a copy of the repairs to management for reimbursement. He also mentioned that the front air conditioner, which was found to not be working shortly after departure from the campground, was also victim to the same circumstances that the microwave encountered. He did not clarify if he got that in writing from the service center. The info is in the original post.


I am guessing about  $1000 in repairs but thats only a guess. I wouldn't expect it to be much more than that. If it was an isolated case, meaning that the camp did not experience other campers complaining of damages, it would be in the best interest of the camp to just pay the bill, fix the problem and keep everyone quiet and happy. One disgruntled camper will tell 50 more. Certainly the case here.